BOSNIA
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Peter Roof and Mathieu Mazza above Sarajevo. |
BOSNIA
HERCEGOVINASpecial Projects
Creative Video of Washington, Inc.
Peter Roof and Mathieu Mazza above Sarajevo.
In March 1996 Peter Roof, then with In House Media Associates, was hired as an audio tech. by photographer Mathieu Mazza of NewsGroup, Inc. to work a month-long assignment in the war-torn country of Bosnia-Hercegovina. The two went to document the recovery and rebuilding efforts sponsored, in part, by the World Bank.
The Dayton Peace Accord had been enacted several months earlier and fighting in the former Yugoslavian territory was essentially over. NATO as the IFOR international peace keeping force was controlling the region as part of the plan. Roof and Mazza arrived early in March and stayed with a family living in Sarajevo. Some of the relief efforts documented: rebuilding a waste-water treatment plant, refurbishing a hydro-electric dam, clearing land-mines, counseling children who were war victims, restoring the superior courts, replacing railway bridges, and micro-loans to new agricultural and hand-craft entrepreneurs.
The assignments took the pair all over the country as far as the towns of Tuzla and Mostar. They also gathered material for two other projects. One was for the Military Channel where they went with British Forces as they patrolled the countryside and small towns. The other was for a program on religion. In the town of Medugorje an apparition of the Virgin Mary appeared a decade earlier. It is now the site of a major pilgrimage for Catholics worldwide. More than 50 BetacamSP tapes were used for all the projects.
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Peter Roof shooting b-roll of devastation in Mostar. |
Peter Roof and Mathieu Mazza on hill over Medugorje. Site of pilgrimage for many Catholics where an apparition of the Virgin Mary appeared a decade earlier. Many climbed this hill barefoot. We kept our shoes on but hauled up Betacam gear instead. |
