Educational Media Reviews Online

This tremendously engaging work details the motivations, tactics, and personal characteristics of the negotiators from Serbia and Kosovo at their first tense meeting in 2011 with the European Union’s chief negotiator Robert Cooper. Before the meeting, the filmmakers briefly present each party’s objectives and obligations to come to a peaceful agreement so that both countries may settle their border dispute. Both countries’ admittance into the EU was dependent upon reaching such a settlement.

The film is composed entirely of “behind the scenes” interviews and actual negotiations at the table. There is no narration, other than the principle decision makers’ monologues. The film devotes great amounts of time to the negotiators working out intricate and delicate language for the allowances of borders. Both parties are seen posturing and maneuvering. The work does an outstanding job in showing the stumbling blocks on issues and particulars in the proposed agreement. EU membership aside, the gravity of the situation is never lost, as Cooper comments, “We are writing on a piece of paper, while somewhere else someone is throwing bombs.”

With cameras following the key players, this documentary rarely feels staged, and has more of a feel reminiscent of the film 12 Angry Men (1957) at most times. It is thoroughly engaging and emphasizes the weight and impacts of the written word. That is, any learner interested in the painstaking dedication needed for policymaking on the scale of international conflict resolution needs to view this work. In closing, there is a timely and near prophetic contemplation of the value and integrity of the European Union.