"Balkan Rhapsodies" is an episodic documentary poem that interweaves a mosaic of encounters, observations, and reflections from Silva's travels throughout war-torn Serbia and Kosovo between 1999 and 2005. An American filmmaker and ethnographer, Jeff Daniel Silva was the first U.S. civilian allowed entry into a devastated Serbia in 1999, just days after the NATO bombings. By immersing himself intimately into the lives of the people he meets, the film grapples with the inexplicable contradictions he encounters while digging deeper in his search for comprehension. Using the 78 days of NATO bombings (March 24 to June 10, 1999) as a structural reference point, this documentary infuses the fragmentation, cultural incongruities, and ultimate dissolution of the Former Yugoslavia into the fabric of its editing through a poetic assemblage of 78 episodic movements (measures). Inspired by the rhapsodic musical form as well as a penchant for Serbia's potent national drink (Å¡ljivovica), the film weaves Silva's footage, gleaned over eight years, incorporating it with cultural imagery, archival material, and informal conversations with American luminaries Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. "Balkan Rhapsodies" deftly balances a serious and humorous landscape that captures the essence of life in the Balkans as lived by a generation ensnared in war during the Milosevic years.