Mostar, summer 1994. Two civil wars in three years have destroyed the city. At first Croatians and Muslims defended the city against the Serbians, then Croats fought against the Muslims. The West is now Croatian and Muslims are enclosed in the East. There is an invisible wall between them, a border crossing called Checkpoint Charlie.

Peace at the border is deceptive, fragile and exists only due to international pressure. The European Union appointed social democrat Hans Koschnick as the city's general administrator. He was given the task of supervising the reconstruction of the destroyed community during a period of two years. Water, lighting, electricity are needed, a new bridge across the Neretva, in short, a city in which people can move freely, where nobody asks whether someone is Serb, Muslim or Croat.

Mirjam Quinte and Pepe Danquart accompanied Koschnick during his time in Mostar. Their documentary NACH SAISON reports the attempt to reanimate the city, in black and white, in colour and newsreel format. Images and photos look fifty years old, which is belied by the film's HipHop music and marksmen called ,Sniper' coming straight out of Hollywood films.

The old, undamaged Mostar appears in NACH SAISON only as ancient history. The city symbol is the four hundred year old bridge Stari Most which used to connect both halves of the city and its inhabitants. People remember it fondly, smiling sadly as if to say: We didn't know then what war meant. All that has remained of the old bridge are two ruined towers, one on each river bank, connected by an unstable suspension bridge which inspires no confidence.

When people begin to recreate their lives, their happiness is always marred by a shadow. A party, people dancing, three girls take a leisurely stroll to the Neretva. For a short while war is forgotten. Memory returns, however, with just a word, a gesture, an incision into everyday life. While the rubble is being cleared, ethnic cleansing goes on in other parts of the town. The division of Mostar is reinforced. Postwar time is prewar time.

Politicians have signed accords - it is ,postwar time'. In Bosnia.

A time when war correspondents leave and world interest fades. A time when people slowly awaken from a nightmare, trying to understand, clear the rubble, rebuild their ,former lives'. For this Mostar was supposed to receive financial and political support from the European Union (EU). Hans Koschnik was appointed temporary EU administrator. We wanted to accompany him, his work, the city and its people on this path towards ,normality' with our camera. We gave our project a preliminary title: After the War.

It wasn't to be. The victims had lost all hope, the perpetrators were not willing to give up. In this tense atmosphere, a permanent threat of war, emotions intensify unbearably: Fear, joy, hatred, hope, despair all occur simultaneously. People find it hard to express themselves because the mind simply cannot comprehend events. They told us: "Why don't you film what you see?" Finding images, however, proved to be just as difficult. We had two years to do it. An excellent prerequisite for making this film.

Hans Koschnik also had two years time - much too little. Too little time to check nationalist dreams in West-Mostar. Koschnik had put his hope into a different model for Mostar: not only to use the military and diplomacy to do politics, but also economic and humanitarian means. He succeeded in some respects but nevertheless failed fundamentally. European diplomacy simply didn't have the tenacity to stick to this path.

(Mirjam Quinte, Pepe Danquart, January 1997)

Thomas Heise: Your film gives the impression that another war in Mostar isn't far off. Did you get that sense when you first visited the city in 1994?

Mirjam Quinte, Pepe Danquart: On the contrary. When the European Union arrived, everyone was euphoric. People thought life would take a turn for the better. We believed we would be documenting the reconstruction of Mostar. The trouble was that each faction had a different concept. Croatians wanted a Croatian Mostar, Muslims hoped for a reunited Mostar, and the world at large believed Mostar could be the model and guarantor of peace in Bosnia. None of this was realized. The sequence of events became increasingly unclear to everyone. All of a sudden people understood: life as it was before the war had disappeared forever. It is important to note the difference between war and civil war. The latter produces fault lines which run straight through families. Once a civil war has ended, everyone will continue to remember the perpetrators and their crimes. Everyone will know the neighbour who has killed the brother, the class mate who has killed the mother. This knowledge cannot be wiped off the agenda. Forgiveness is almost impossible - that's why every attempt to forge a new community in Mostar has failed utterly.