''A Cry from the Grave'' or ''Srebrenica: A Cry from the Grave'' is a 1999 British

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

about the 1995

Srebrenica massacre The Srebrenica massacre ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Masakr u Srebrenici, Масакр у Сребреници), also known as the Srebrenica genocide ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Genocid u Srebrenici, Геноцид у Сребрен ...

. The film was directed and produced by

Leslie Woodhead James Leslie John Woodhead, OBE (born 1937) is a British documentary filmmaker. For his National Service commencing in 1956, he served in Fife at the Joint Services School for Linguists where he was taught Russian. He was posted to West Berlin ...

. Using testimony of survivors and relatives the documentary tells the story of the massacre of over 8,000 Bosnian men and boys by the

Bosnian Serb Army The Army of Republika Srpska ( sr, Војска Републике Српске/Vojska Republike Srpske; ВРС/VRS), commonly referred to in English as the Bosnian Serb Army, was the military of Republika Srpska (RS), the self-proclaimed Serb ...

. The documentary was used in the

war crimes trial A war crimes trial is the trial of persons charged with criminal violation of the laws and customs of war and related principles of international law committed during armed conflict. History The trial of Peter von Hagenbach by an ad hoc tribun ...

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

Awards

The documentary won the Special Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary at the 12th

International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam. Over a period of twelve days, it has screened more than 300 films and sold more than 250,000 tic ...

in December 1999. At the 13th

Biarritz International Festival of Audiovisual Programming The ''International Festival of Audiovisual Programmes'' or ''International Documentary Festival FIPADOC'' ( (FIPA)), founded in 1987 by Michel Mitrani (1930-1996), was first held in Cannes in October 1987., In 2019, the FIPA became FIPADOC,,, an ...

in January 2000 the documentary won the silver FIPA award in the Documentary and Essay category. The documentary won the Mayor of Prague award at the second

One World Film Festival One World ( Czech: ''Jeden svět'') is the largest human rights film festival in the world (125,947 spectators in 2018), held annually in Prague and other 36 cities of the Czech Republic, with a selection later shown in Brussels and other countries ...

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

in April 2000. In June 2000 the documentary won the Air Canada Grand Prize and the Best History or Biography Programme award at the 21st

Banff Television Festival The Banff World Media Festival (formerly known as the Banff World Television Festival) is an international media event held in the Canadian Rockies at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Alberta, Canada. The festival is dedicated to world ...

. In September 2000 the documentary won the Information category award at the fifth Gouden Beelden. It won first prize in the International Television category at the 33rd

Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award The Robert F. Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism is a journalism award named after Robert F. Kennedy and awarded by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. The annual awards are issued in several categories and were est ...

in 2001. The documentary was nominated for the Outstanding Background/Analysis of a Single Current Story - Programs award at the 22nd

News & Documentary Emmy Award The News & Documentary Emmy Awards, or News & Documentary Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sci ...

in September 2001.

Broadcast

The documentary was broadcast on BBC Two in the UK on 27 November 1999 as part of the '' Storyville'' series. In the Netherlands the documentary was broadcast on

Ned 3 NPO 3 (''NPO drie'', formerly Nederland 3 until 2014) is the third and youngest of the terrestrial television channels operated by the Dutch public-broadcasting organization NPO in the Netherlands. It carries programmes provided by member-based ...

on 6 December 1999. In the US the documentary was broadcast on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

on 17 January 2000 and narrated by

Bill Moyers Bill Moyers (born Billy Don Moyers, June 5, 1934) is an American journalist and political commentator. Under the Johnson administration he served from 1965 to 1967 as the eleventh White House Press Secretary. He was a director of the Counci ...

. The broadcast of the documentary on Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) in the summer of 2001, on the sixth anniversary of the massacre, resulted in a storm of protests including opposition politicians calling for the dismissal of senior RTS staff.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cry from the Grave, A 1999 documentary films 1999 films British documentary films Documentary films about the Bosnian genocide Documentary films about war crimes Srebrenica massacre BBC television documentaries about history during the 20th Century 1990s English-language films 1990s British films