KINOFIL a troubling look at postwar Bosnia and how it deals with unwanted dogs

I never really took note of stray dogs in all my time spent in Bosnia. I know that has changed after watching Damir Janecek's movie KINOFIL. A jarring look at the realities of the life of domestic animals in post war Bosnia. During the war many people were unable to feed themselves and their families let alone household pets, many owners fled with little to no belongings and 10,000 others were killed in the Siege of Sarajevo, often turning their pets over to the streets. The cruelty of war is one of the spectrum's that you see the images of this film, the scenes of dogs murdered and left in the streets reminded me very much of the streets of Brcko were police hunted down Bosniaks and Croats in the streets and murdered them point blank. Or Arkan's killers in Eastern Bosnia in 1992, that Ron Haviv's camera had captured so chillingly. There is no doubt that the cruelty which was unleashed in the Bosnian war contributed to the cruelty shown these beautiful, loving, innocent creatures.
There is also the dimension of many of the cosmopolitan citizens of Sarajevo have been replaced with those used to a more rural way of living, were slaughtering a lamb on a street in front of children wouldn't raise an eyebrow. Many of my Sarajevan friends lament the loss of the city people who fled before, during or after the war. Many times we have heard the phrase "brain drain" in association with the aftermath of war. What we don't often here is culture drain and the loss of civility and empathy because of the breakdown in social structures and stress related to war time trauma.
This film is not only about the animal cruelty but also the larger picture of post war problems in BiH. St. Francis of Assisi said it best "If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men. " There is no doubt that these issues of war, crimes and punishment and post war reconstruction of the Bosnian civil society is not mutually exclusive of the treatment of animals...
This documentary is a must see for anyone interested Bosnia, Dogs and the general human condition. I remember being shocked along with most of the world when a YouTube video surfaced of a young girl in Bosnia tossing puppies into a raging river, this film gave me some context to that issue and to so much more of post war BiH...

 A couple of links to the film...

http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/Actions-Serbia/Kinofil_Movie_Belgrade.htm

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/6818265/video/63953412-documentary-kinofil