Nedžad Begović

Then...

Now...

"I know that you have a photo in your archives of this door where I am standing with the canisters. This door looks like this today. I used to pass through that door when I was going to a cistern or somewhere in search of water. Here is the gutter of my building where we collected rainwater or when the snow melts and it was the so-called technical water. This means that we bathed with it in a way that is already known, more or less to everyone, which is to put a basin in the bathtub, then you get into the basin and then my wife sprinkles me with water and I bathe. That water is used to flush the toilet. Since the water is warm, the tiles in the bathroom get wet and then my wife wipes them clean. One of my biggest wartime projects was this well I dug with my neighbours. We had been using it for over two years. It was 7.5 meters deep. We came across clay and that's when we knew we had to dig deeper. So, it didn't matter to us, however straight and deep, that was the code, until we found water. Today, as far as water is concerned, everything is ordinary, regular, normal. We have water. The only reflex I have left from the war is that when I brush my teeth or when I shave, I don't let the water run, so while I'm brushing my teeth, I turn off the water, then open it again, thus somehow contributing to global water protection. I hope that this well that I showed you will never be used in that way again. But times are complicated, you never know." - Nedžad Begović, film director (February 2024)