Cities and Memory in the (post) Yugoslav space

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This event brings together a scholarly talk, film screening, and discussion. The talk presents the public history aspects of Brigitte Le Normand’s current research project, Rijeka in Flux, which aims to engage the public in collecting knowledge about the city's past, and share that research through a mobile phone app. This will be followed by dinner and a screening and discussion of Igor Drljaca’s new film, “The Stone Speakers,” which  examines the intersection between tourism and ideology in four post-war Bosnia and Herzegovinian towns.

Igor Drljaca is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of British Columbia. He completed his Master’s in Film Production at York University in 2011, where he was also an adjunct professor between 2015-18.  His award winning short films include Woman in Purple (2010), and The Fuse: or How I Burned Simon Bolivar (2011), which have screened at hundreds of festivals, including: South by Southwest, Toronto, Telluride, Tampere, Palm Springs Shortfest, and Vancouver International Film Festival. In 2013, The Fuse was nominated as best short documentary at the Canadian Screen Awards (CSA). His critically acclaimed debut feature Krivina (2012) premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and had its international premiere at Rotterdam. He co-produced Albert Shin’s In Her Place (2014), which received 7 CSA nominations, including best picture.

Brigitte Le Normand is Assistant Professor in the department of History at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. Her publications on urban planning in socialist Yugoslavia include Designing Tito’s Capital: Urban Planning, Modernism, and Socialism in Belgrade (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014.) She is currently completing a monograph on the relationship between Yugoslavia and its migrant workers in Europe during the Cold War. Her research fellowships include a Max Weber fellowship (2007) and a Humboldt fellowship (2018). She is the principle investigator of the project Rijeka in Flux: Borders and Urban Change after World War II. Aside from managing the project as a whole, and coordinating the team of historians, she is carrying out research on the impact of the border and regime change in 1945 on the flow of people, goods, capital, and ideas in and out of the city. She is particularly interested in the ways in which these flows left their mark on the body of the city. This project is funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Insight Development Grant 2014, Connection Grant 2017, Insight Grant 2018.)