Dead Man Walking

One day, the Bosnian Himzo Muratovic came back from the dead. People say it was a taxi with a Serbian license plate that dropped him off at his childhood home in Motovo in September 2004. After being presumed dead for 12 years, Muratovic was back in his native village. During the war, this Muslim village, located in the Serbian part of Bosnia-Herzegovina, was burnt to the ground by Serbian paramilitaries. Corpses of vanished villagers are still being uncovered in mass graves all over the country. When a monument was erected in memory of the victims a decade after the war ended, Himzo Muratovic was one of the names on the memorial. There was no sign he was still among the living. When he reappears out of thin air, and appears to be in good health, the village celebrates his homecoming. Soon, though, people start asking questions. "Where were you? How did you survive? Why haven't we heard anything from you?" Muratovic veils himself in silence. Dead Man Walking introduces neighbours, former employers, relatives and villagers who all discuss the mystery of Muratovic's return. Was he in a labour camp? Was he married to a Serbian woman? Or had he simply been lying low for 12 years? Gradually, the film unravels a story that is just as sad as it is happy. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)