My Blood My Compromise

Albanian-American director Nuhi de Stani's documentary examines why the self-declared-independent Balkan state of Kosovo still suffers eight years after the United Nations intervened in the region's bloody ethnic conflict during the late 1990s. Some 90 percent of Kosovo's 2.4 million inhabitants claim Albanian ancestry, and de Stani lays most of the blame for the current situation on then-President Slobodan Miloševic, an ethnic Serb, who would later stand trial for war crimes (many also believe the U.N. could have handled things better). To explain what happened, de Stani combines video footage and photographs (some quite disturbing) together with interviews of subjects including Oxford University history professor and author Noel Malcolm (Kosovo: A Short History); late U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor; and former Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi, a supporter of the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army). The filmmaker also talks with a U.N. representative, a member of the Serbian parliament, experts on ethnic cleansing, and ordinary Kosovans who recount their experiences fighting and defending themselves against the Serbs (one mother remains too traumatized to speak). The destruction of property and disruption of lives would force many into Albania and Montenegro, leaving Kosovo a broken territory inhabited by people suffering from physical and emotional scars. DVD extras include deleted scenes and the short documentary, “In a Word, ‘Democracy',” which looks at the treatment of Macedonian Albanians in the wake of independence. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)