Eastern Neighbours Film Festival continues its On Tour autumn season at De Balie in Amsterdam. Join us on Saturday 10 October 2026 at 19:00 for the Dutch premiere of Peacemaker, a documentary about the Osijek police chief who in 1991 fought tirelessly to prevent the Croatian-Serbian war through dialogue and negotiation, and was assassinated.

The screening will be followed by a discussion about the role of pacifists, peace advocates and people in positions of leadership when a society becomes deeply polarised and tensions escalate. Join us afterwards for a traditional Balkan cocktail.

In 1991, on the outskirts of Tenja, Josip Reihl-Kir – the chief of the Osijek Police Department, a man dedicated to negotiations and avoiding war – was killed. Peacemaker is a story about the last few months of his life, in the dawn of the bloodthirsty Croatian-Serbian war, which Kir had been trying hard to prevent, told through the statements of a few witnesses and archive materials from the era. Still today, after over 30 years, many elements of that assassination remain unclear and the possible contractors – still unknown. Filmmaker Ivan Ramljak is one of the most significant Croatian documentarians, renowned for his distinctive approach to historical issues.

Original title: Mirotvorac | Year: 2025 | Runtime: 100′
Country: Croatia | Language: Croatian | Subtitles: English
Director: Ivan Ramljak | Production: Nenad Puhovski – Factum | Screenplay: Drago Hedl, Hrvoje Zovko, Ivan Ramljak | Cinematography: Srđan Kovačević | Editing: Damir Čučić | Sound: Tihomir Vrbanec

FESTIVALS & AWARDS (SELECTION)

ZagrebDox, 2025 – World Premiere | Pula Film Festival, 2025 – Best Film, Best Editing | Cinehill Film Festival, 2025 – Audience Award | Rab Film Festival, 2025 – Audience Award, Special Jury Mention | Liburnia Film Festival, 2025 – Best Film, Audience Award | Croatian Film Days, 2025 – Best Film, Best Script | DOK Leipzig, 2025 – Best Feature-Length Documentary | Belgrade Author Film Festival, 2025 – Brave Balkans’ Bravest Award | Pordenone Docs Fest, 2026 – Special Jury Mention | MoMA: Doc Fortnight, 2026 | Underhill Fest, 2026 – Special Mention

DIRECTOR’S BIO

Ivan Ramljak (b. 1974) is a film director and independent curator. In 2003, he founded the Human Rights Film Festival Zagreb. From 2013 to 2022, he edited and hosted Short Tuesday, a short film programme at the Tuškanac cinema in Zagreb, and from 2016 to 2023, he was the artistic director of the Tabor Film Festival. Since 2022, he has been one of the short film selectors for the International Film Festival Rotterdam, as well as a scout for feature films from the former Yugoslavia. So far, he has directed 9 shorts, 1 medium-length film and 3 feature films, mostly of a documentary nature. His films Islands of Forgotten Cinemas, Home of the Resistance, Mezostajun, Once Upon a Youth and El Shatt – Blueprint for Utopia have been screened at more than 80 festivals around the world, including IFFR, Cinéma du Réel, Dok Leipzig, Sarajevo, Dokufest, where they won numerous awards.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

The film intends to draw the audience into the atmosphere of Osijek in early 1991, investigating how a police chief was murdered in broad daylight with many witnesses present, and questioning if this tragic war could have been avoided. I hope that some of our insights will help clarify the incidents we address in Peacemaker.