Freedom From Despair

Running time: 96 mins

** Congratulations to Viewers' Voice winner Freedom From Despair. Per the filmmaker's request, the film is no longer available online, but the trailer will be available here soon. **

FREEDOM FROM DESPAIR portrays the incredible journey of Kruno Brkusic, who as a young man risked his life to flee from Communist Yugoslavia - a regime that suppressed Croatian culture through state-sanctioned terror, imprisonment and exile. When Krunoâ??s homeland becomes scarred by war during the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1991, he becomes a voice in the American media, fighting to disseminate untrue propaganda and challenging journalists to take a stand on human rights. As the nation watches the carnage on television, Kruno and thousands of Croatian-Americans demonstrate on Capitol Hill in a desperate attempt to convince George Bush Senior to recognize Croatia. The film examines the role certain administrations had in allowing the massacre of 250,000 people to occur in the Balkan War and is a shocking look at that which was never revealed in the American mainstream media including the American governmentâ??s attempt keep Yugoslavia together by supporting two of the worldâ??s bloodiest dictators, Josip Broz Tito and Slobodan Milosevic. In exploring the atrocities committed and hidden by the Communist government of Yugoslavia and its allies, the filmmaker pieces together a shocking world that lay silent with a generation of survivors for the past 60 years.

* Best Documentary, International Student Film Festival Hollywood

* Best Documentary, New York International Independent Film Festival

* Best Documentary, Chapman Studios Filmmaker Awards

* Special Recognition, Dubrovnik International Film Festival

* Finalist, The Anti-Defamation League Dore Schary Awards

* Semi-Finalist, The Angelus Awards

Cinequest Category: INSPIRATION