The first Croatian film to win the Cannes Palme d’Or and now the first from the country to be in the running for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short, The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent from Nebojša Slijepčević will have you asking yourself questions that feel as uncomfortable for you as they do for those present in this affecting 13-minute depiction of a horrific massacre committed 30 years ago. Slijepčević, after undertaking an immense amount of research, has created a film whose relevance echoes through time from the real life incident to atrocities taking place in the here and now and draws us into a claustrophobic, volatile moment where we are forced to confront our silent complicity with unconscionable events. The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent, led by an immensely emotive performance from Goran Bogdan and filmed in an old train carriage, eschews overly complex or flashy filmmaking techniques, instead relying upon passionate storytelling, an intimate understanding of what needed to be captured and Slijepčević’s talents as a director honed by his many years as a documentary filmmaker. As part of our ongoing coverage of the 2025 Oscars we spoke to the nominated writer/director about discovering unnecessary dialogue through his actors’ compelling performances, the power of silence and only having 50 metres of track on which to film a moving train.

So to kick off I’d like to know more about your decision to move from documentaries to fiction and what The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent is about.

For a good part of my life I have been directing documentaries, my first love of film. I made several feature documentaries, shorts, and plenty of TV work. Then five years ago when COVID hit I became a father and I decided to dedicate myself more to fiction. The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent is my second fiction short, a 13-minute film based on a real event from the 1993 Bosnian war. A civilian train was stopped by Serbian paramilitary forces who boarded the train at Štrpci and started dragging out passengers with Muslim surnames. Out of 500 passengers, only one man stood up to them and this is his story. But it’s also about all the others who remained silent, caring only for their own lives, as many of us might do in such a situation.

I was haunted by the manner in which the paramilitaries segregated people by asking about their patron saints, not dissimilar to Rafael Trujillo’s 1937 Parsley Massacre.

When I was researching the event in the writing of the script I read over one thousand pages of court documents and first-hand witness accounts, and most of the dialogue in the film is taken from those real life testimonies. Whilst most of the people in the film are fictionalised they are inspired by real people and this binary test they used to find out who was Croatian and who was Muslim was real. Every family in the Orthodox Church has their own patron saint and knows that particular day of celebration but obviously, Muslims wouldn’t have known. 19 people were taken off the train that day, they were all killed and the majority of the victim’s bodies were never recovered.

My primary concern was to present events correctly not to re-traumatize anyone.

How did your detailed research (which I imagine must have been immensely difficult) feed into the writing of this fictionalised depiction of that tragic event?

I felt a huge responsibility, similar to when I make documentaries. Although this is fiction, I knew that many of the people who were on that train are still alive and could watch the film. More significantly those who lost loved ones will be watching it – it was only 30 years ago. My primary concern was to present events correctly not to re-traumatize anyone. Before even starting writing the script, I located the the main character’s son, Tomo Buzov, who died that day, and asked his permission to make the film. Tomo’s character was the only one whose real name was used. He was a real man who performed a heroic task and lost his life. This responsibility ensured my research was as thorough as possible. I also sent the script to friends from Montenegro, where most victims were from, to ensure it was respectful and truthful.

The film centres upon the witnessing of the event and your camerawork is used as a type of witness. I know you filmed everything beforehand on an iPhone to help prepare your coverage plans for the confined space of the train.

We knew we’d be filming on a real train with very limited space. It is really confined and there isn’t any space play with the film language – you’re restricted to just a couple of lenses. For me, it was important to find the visual dynamics before shooting so I could use the tools I had as efficiently as possible in that small space. I also took some of my documentary filmmaking discipline. It is commonplace that you end up with a lot of footage, much more than you need and you arrive in the editing room with hundreds of hours of raw footage trying to find your film which I hated. I was also a cinematographer in some of my previous documentaries so I only started the camera when I was 50% certain I was going to use the material. I approached this film in a similar fashion.

This preparation gave us freedom to experiment during actual the filming and I was able to try some other things while still knowing the basic structure.

Using stand-ins from the production crew, I filmed the whole thing multiple times on my cellphone and a small documentary camera which I use. Later, we brought in the director of photography, Gregor Božič, and tested the Arri Alexa in the train and decided what lenses to use and whether we could use a dolly in that tiny corridor. This preparation gave us freedom to experiment during the actual filming and I was able to try some other things while still knowing the basic structure. Obviously, the actors bring something extra to the set and we had that room to change things in the moment if we wanted.

Did anything change when you were on set filming from what was defined during the rehearsals?

Of course, because I had fantastic actors and what they brought was subtlety to their roles. The script had more lines than what ended up in the film. The script was a little louder but during rehearsals with Goran Bogdan and Alexis Manenti, who are such great actors, we realized we didn’t need certain dialogue because they could convey so much through silence which was stronger. For instance, we didn’t need the soldier to actually push anyone. With our actors, we toned down the whole film, which in my opinion, made it scarier and more impressive.

We needed space to edit and for separate close-ups so we went narrow.

What was the reasoning behind going with a 4:3 aspect ratio?

That was a very early decision, even before speaking to Gregor it was one of my first notes. It was a logical choice, in the train, 16:9 or a wider aspect ratio would show all faces in a compartment, but we needed space to edit and for separate close-ups so we went narrow. In the corridor, a wide format wouldn’t add anything – just walls. Furthermore, it fits the claustrophobic atmosphere of the film. Finally, the film takes place in 1993 when most newsreels from the Bosnian war were shot on Betacam for television in 4:3 format, so it matches the visual language of the era so it all made sense.

You were using an old decommissioned train car as your location, how did you transform it into a convincing moving train, especially in that final haunting scene?

We had access to a train engine that could move about 50 meters on a track at the main station in Zagreb where they wash all the trains as the car itself was in such horrible condition and couldn’t be used on open tracks. We had to carefully time the camera panning over the windows with the train’s movement. When the pan finishes on Goran Bogdan’s close-up and you no longer see the window, the train is actually stopping but we created the illusion of continued movement and the train speeding up through sound effects and lighting. We had to meticulously time the movement of the camera and the movement of the train so nobody knew it was stopping and you just had a couple of seconds to pan over the window.

He was my first and only choice because I knew a large part of the film would rely on his close up, showing him breaking down on the inside, without cutting away which is very difficult for an actor

Tell me about working with Goran Bogdan on that final shot where you pan over Busov’s glasses, his newspaper, the empty seat then around the carriage to Goran’s face.

Goran is a fantastic actor to work with and we spent hours talking about life, politics, humanity, motivation – everything except rehearsing. We did script readings to find the right moments but we didn’t do any emotional rehearsals before shooting and I actually didn’t watch his performance until the day we shot. He knew exactly where his character was emotionally, we knew what had to happen but not how. He knew where his character was and we would start the camera and the train and I watched what happened in the camera as if I was a member of the audience. We did five or six takes for technical reasons, but he was perfect every time. He was my first and only choice because I knew a large part of the film would rely on his close up, showing him breaking down on the inside, without cutting away which is very difficult for an actor but I have seen him performing in similar films. He is a really big star in Croatia and when he is on set there are people coming up for selfies but he is wonderful and very humble.

I was struck by so many elements in the sound design. Alongside your use of silence, we have the soldiers shouting, the pounding footsteps, the music of the teenager’s walkman and the industrial train sounds. There are so many elements which build the tension and horror.

Sound was important from the script stage, starting with the train sounds in the tunnel which I wrote in at the very start and you can hear as the credits open – a black screen with that repetitious sound of a train. When writing I was thinking about sound as much as images. I knew it would be crucial, especially in the scene I call ‘shadow play’ where they close the curtains and the door to the compartment and try to ignore what’s happening outside. You just see shadows but you can’t ignore the sounds from the outside – even the young woman’s walkman can’t block out the shouting outside. Whilst it was planned on using music at the start, during the edit we suddenly weren’t sure. Then our sound editor Ivan Andreev presented us his first version and we knew we didn’t need it. Everything was there – very dry, very raw. Less became more, even with sound.

I was tricking them with the silence then I would start banging loudly on the wall of the train.

On set, when we were filming the scene where they wait for the soldiers to come to their compartment I was making sounds in the corridor, trying to get the extras to react. I was tricking them with the silence then I would start banging loudly on the wall of the train. This wasn’t the smartest decision as it was so old at one point my fist went through the train so some of those bangs and footsteps are me.

It goes without saying, congratulations on the Oscar nomination and I’ve enjoyed reading other interviews with you talking about the universality of the story, that this is about a horrific indecent from the past but very much speaks to current events.

Although the event took place 30 years ago, it wasn’t just about that for me. It speaks to something very universal and something I and a lot of others can identify with. The situation we are presenting is similar to one many of us have witnessed though perhaps not as extreme. A couple of years ago, I experienced something comparable on a bus in Europe during the Syrian refugee crisis. Some of them were undocumented and the German police stopped the bus at night on the highway, entered the bus asking for IDs and then proceeded to start removing men with darker skin. Those men didn’t get back on the bus, they were kept by police and either arrested or deported – nothing nice happened to those men and none of us asked what happened. That of course wasn’t the same situation as in the film where we are talking about genocide, but it raises the same question and made me think about what I would do if I was on the train. Would I do something? The film also makes us think about how we react to wars happening just a few countries away from us.

When you read the synopsis of this film, if you are from Serbia, it could easily seem like a Croat is making an anti-Serbian propaganda film which is not the case at all.

The film must have sparked some interesting conversations and reactions during your festival run.

The reactions have been mostly fantastic, but for me, the most touching was the reaction from the audience in Belgrade. I’m a Croat from Croatia making a film about war crimes committed by Serbian paramilitary forces, which is politically sensitive. Over the last decades, we have seen many films that, in my opinion, have been made for political reasons – propaganda films. When you read the synopsis of this film, if you are from Serbia, it could easily seem like a Croat is making an anti-Serbian propaganda film which is not the case at all but I was very apprehensive to see the reaction in Belgrade.

The film screened in front of 3,000 people including Tomo Buzov’s family. It was the opening of a film festival and played before Anora. It was fantastic, the audience understood the film completely and reacted very warmly and Buzov’s family were equally touched. It was the most important screening for me and I love watching my film with an audience.

Are you planning to continue to work on fiction going forward?

I think I’ll continue with fiction, though that doesn’t mean I’ll leave documentary behind. I’m currently preparing my first feature fiction film, which I’m writing now and hope to get into production in the next two years. We have a strong wind behind us as we’ll work with the same production company and team as The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent, as we had such a great experience working together.

A lone hero cannot do anything – only in Marvel films do lone heroes save the world. In real life, lone heroes lose their lives and the world remains the same.

Since watching the film and discussing it with my partner I have been asking myself what I would do in that situation and I still have no idea.

I don’t think anyone knows until they find themselves in situations like that. I hope we never have to find out but something very important for me, and something in the film, is that it’s not about one person doing something. When people ask me what I would do I don’t have an answer but I think the only solution is that all six people react, not just one. A lone hero cannot do anything – only in Marvel films do lone heroes save the world. In real life, lone heroes lose their lives and the world remains the same. The only solution is not to have heroes but to have people come together.

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