Dir. Viktor Portel - 74min - 2022 - Czech Republic, Croatia

Vladimír Dzuro is the first Czech criminal investigator to have worked for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In the 1990’s he collected evidence against war criminals and hunted perpetrators of ethnic cleansing. We join Vladimír Dzuro on his metaphorical and physical journey across the former Yugoslavia to the places where his investigations took place. He recalls his two biggest cases- the Ovčara massacre related to Vukovar's mayor Slavko Dokmanović in Croatia, and the ethnic cleansing committed by the warlord Zeljko Ražnatović Arkan in Sanski Most, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Survivors of these cases give testimony and bring the often-painful past into the present moment.

What is the landscape of the Balkans, which saw a fratricidal conflict twenty-five years ago, like today? What happened to the people who still live there and to their memories? What is the significance and meaning of justice that is brought from the outside? And can justice be attained?

The film is inspired by Vladimir Dzuro’s bestselling book The Investigator – Demons of the Balkan War (Grada, 2017, and Potomac Books, 2019).