Svjedoci (Witnesses) is a masterful piece of storytelling that looks at events surrounding a murder and the possible execution of its only witness through various points of view. Croatian director Vinko Bresan, whose first two films were political satires, abandons irony here for an honest and emotional account of how war and ethnic hatred corrupt moral behavior. With top-notch production values, especially fluid and sharp-focused cinematography by Zivko Zalar, this Berlinale competition film makes an excellent candidate for art houses everywhere.

Bresan follows a recent filmmaking trend that eschews linear narration in favor of a fractured story wherein the same events are recounted from different viewpoints, letting motivations and back story gradually fill in a picture that is only completely clear in the film's final moments.

The different viewpoints reveal the interconnections of nearly everyone in the small town, a microcosm for what happened in Croatia, where terrible things occurred during the war and everyone, in a sense, bore witness to these crimes against humanity.

Excerpt from Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter