BBC Four’s Storyville, always a reliable source for world-spanning documentaries, steps into one of modern history’s darkest corners with The Srebrenica Tape. Airing Tuesday, July 1 at 10 PM, the film centers on Alisa, a young woman born in Srebrenica, as she returns to her shattered hometown to piece together the truth about her father. He was one of the 8,000 Bosnian Muslims killed during the 1995 massacre, a crime against humanity that stains the collective memory of Europe.
Alisa’s search finds its guide in an unexpected source: a four-hour VHS tape filmed by her father, Sejfo. An amateur filmmaker, Sejfo recorded everyday life inside the besieged enclave, creating a rare document of a vibrant community before its destruction. It becomes more than just footage; it is a way for Alisa to find belonging, to connect with a family history torn apart by the horrors of war.
Srebrenica, once a thriving multi-ethnic community, faced ethnic cleansing and widespread violence during the Bosnian War. Despite being a United Nations-declared “safe area,” Bosnian Serb troops overran the town in July 1995, committing mass murder and aiming to erase any trace of Muslim life. This film uses Sejfo’s recovered tape to illustrate the ground-level reality within the enclave and the deep personal cost of such atrocities. It’s a look at how racial hatred destroyed a town once full of integrated communities.
