Reunion
Ten Years After the War

Gathered in a small theatre in Lillehammer, we watch Reunion: Ten Years After the War. This is my second time – the first was in a Saint Petersburg basement where I first came to know about the NCPD.

In the leadup to the NATO bombings in Kosovo, the NCPD organized dialogue sessions between Kosovar Serbs and Albanians in order to restore points of contact between leaders, businesspeople and students on both sides of the ethnic divide. This was in hope of resisting the 'parallel realities' that were emerging in the region.

These parallel realities are created when different cultural groups, often with ethnic differences, begin creating and consuming cultural content (news, books, events) that excludes the other side, their history and their narratives. When this separation happens, the likelihood of conflict increases. Dialogue is a technique that seeks to resist this tendency.

Reunion tells the story of one of the last groups to be brought together by the NCPD before the bombs started falling. Director Jon Haukeland contacted the surviving members of this dialogue group and, ten years after the conflict ended, brought them together again to discuss the legacy of the war.

During the first dialogue process, Kosovar Serbs held more cultural and political power than the Kosovar Albanians, but the positions had shifted in the decade since. Kosovar Albanians, now a majority in a de facto state, hold more power than the remaining Kosovar Serbs. The participants, many of which had never seen the others in the past ten years, were forced to confront these changes and process the new status quo in their nation.

For many, 'dialogue' seems too abstract a concept to imagine. In Reunion, we see a living example of conflict, communication, friendship and the complications that come with being forced to choose a side when the bombs start falling. A highly recommended introduction to the dialogue process, as well as for anyone looking to explore how we do or don't talk to each other in moments of profound crisis.