MY FATHER’S DIARIES
(JOHN, BEN, BOYS)
A documentary film by Ado Hasanović
Produced by Palomar (Italy) & Mediawan (France), 97’, 2024, International Distribution : Mediawan Rights
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My Father’s Diaries is in competition at the David di Donatello Awards 2026.
I diari di mio padre è in concorso ai Premi David di Donatello 2026.
Gallery: Events, Posters & Moments with Audience
"My Father’s Diaries was released in Italian cinemas in April 2025, after its world premiere at Visions du Réel, and screenings at the Sarajevo Film Festival, the Trieste Film Festival, the MedFilm Festival, and many other places across Europe. Then it reached New York City, and from there it kept traveling, carrying with it my father’s voice and the voice of my homeland.
After so many screenings, awards, and encounters, I’ve realized that the most precious part is not the recognition, but the people. Each time I speak with someone after a screening, a sincere space opens up — a space where pain becomes connection.
Returning in my mind to Glogova, my village, and to the towns where I grew up — Bratunac and Srebrenica — was not easy. Yet it was there that I learned memory is not only about remembering: it’s about living.
This film has been a form of healing for me. And when I see it touching the hearts of those who watch it, I understand that my story no longer belongs only to me — it also belongs to those who welcome it in silence, in the dark of a cinema, before the light of a screen." Ado Hasanović
My Father’s Diaries was selected in the Official Selection at Visions du Réel 2024
LOGLINE
LOGLINE
Thirty years after the Srebrenica genocide, Ado Hasanović delves into his father's incredible story by exploring his diaries and footage from those years.
Film Stills
SYNOPSIS
In August 1993, Bekir Hasanović trades a gold coin for a video camera, which he uses to document daily life in Srebrenica from that point onward. The footage he captures during the war, along with his makeshift crew, Dzon, Ben & Boys, presents an unexpected portrait of a disoriented population that holds on to reality with resilience and a healthy dose of humor. Ado, Bekir’s son, uses these recordings and his father’s diaries to reconstruct his image. Together with his mother, Fatima, he seeks to understand how Bekir survived the Death March and the Srebrenica genocide
DIRECTOR'S NOTES
My Father’s Diaries is a documentary about my father, Bekir Hasanović, an amateur cameraman and filmmaker during the harsh years of the Bosnian War. He was one of the few men to survive what is known as the Death March—a 100-kilometer trek through the woods undertaken by 15,000 Bosniak Muslims trying to escape the Serbs who sought to kill them.
My relationship with my father has always been complex. Even when I hoped he would share his experiences with me, he refused to talk about how he survived the Srebrenica genocide.
I was only six years old when the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina began. To be honest, for a long time, I tried to forget my difficult childhood. Like my father, I avoided confronting the past.
In 2011, when I was accepted into the Sarajevo Film Academy, my mother handed me my father’s diaries and whispered that I should hide them, he wanted to destroy everything. That moment marked the beginning of a thought I had long resisted: making a film I never wanted to make.
Then, in 2016, after he survived a heart attack, something changed. For the first time, I felt the urgency to turn the camera toward him.
My father had once been a cameraman and filmmaker himself. He documented everyday life in the small, fragile community he belonged to, involving his friends Izet, nicknamed Ben, and Nedzad, nicknamed Boys. Together, the trio John, Ben, and Boys filmed scenes of daily life in Srebrenica, creating not only dramatic short films but also, surprisingly, comedies.
Ado Hasanović
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