They were brought together by a love of theatre, film, and the arts. Acting classes, gatherings after lectures, endless conversations, shared achievements, and everyday student life proved stronger than the divisions that marked the region at the time. For former students of the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo, who revisited their memories of studying during the war years of the 1990s through the documentary Where Are You Going?, one building and one city, the Academy and Sarajevo, became a home, a refuge, and a place of belonging to which they gladly return.

Together, they celebrated both Bajram and Christmas, opened their homes to one another, and came of age in a city that embraced diversity as one of its greatest values. Although life later took many of them to different cities and countries, Sarajevo has remained a place they always return to with affection, while the experiences they shared at the Academy continue to connect them to this day.

Those memories come to life in the documentary Where Are You Going?, produced as part of the project Time Machine, implemented by the Forum Association with the support of the project EU Support to Confidence Building in the Western Balkans. Conceived as a tool for dialogue and reflection on a shared past, the film directed by Tarik Hodžić creates space for conversations about understanding, empathy, and the values that connect people across the region. Through personal testimonies of former students, the film takes audiences back to a time when young people from different parts of the former Yugoslavia learned, created, and grew together, without asking one another about their religion, ethnicity, or place of origin.

In their stories, Sarajevo is more than a backdrop. It is one of the film’s main protagonists. A city that welcomed people of different identities, cultures, and experiences. A city where they felt accepted and to which, as the film’s participants recall, they always returned, even when life took them elsewhere. And the Academy of Performing Arts remains the bridge that has always connected them to Sarajevo and continues to do so today.

For that reason, Where Are You Going? is not simply a film about the past. It is a story about people who found a common language through art in the most difficult of times. A story about how human connection can be stronger than division, and how friendship can outlast the circumstances that surround it.

From Sarajevo to Belgrade and Zagreb: Building New Bridges Among Young People

The film began its journey before audiences on 8 May at Sarajevo’s Meeting Point Cinema, where it was screened for former and current students of the Academy of Performing Arts, professors, actors, friends of the project, and members of the public. The warm atmosphere following the screening, filled with conversations, reunions, and shared memories, demonstrated that stories of togetherness still resonate deeply with people today.

Just a few days later, on 15 May, the film arrived in Belgrade, where it was screened at the Belgrade Cultural Centre. The discussion that followed further confirmed that the experiences portrayed in the film have not remained confined to the past. Particularly moving were the reflections of students from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, who spoke about their time in Sarajevo and the friendships they had built with students of the Academy of Performing Arts, showing that new bridges continue to be built among young people today.

The film’s journey continued in Zagreb, where it was screened for young people from Croatia, Serbia, and Cyprus. Audience reactions demonstrated a strong need for stories like this one. Stories that do not deny differences but remind us of what connects people. Stories in which shared experiences, humanity, and the willingness to meet and understand one another take centre stage.

Through this regional tour, Where Are You Going? symbolically follows the path once travelled by its protagonists, connecting Sarajevo, Belgrade, Zagreb, and other cities across the region through dialogue, memory, and mutual understanding.

As it continues its journey towards new audiences, including an upcoming screening at the Sarajevo Film Festival, Where Are You Going? remains above all an intimate story about people brought together by art and by a city that connected them. It is a story that reminds us that trust often begins where people create together, engage in dialogue, and find a common language.