Discoveries from Serbia World Cinema

A biography of Karađorđe, the famed leader of the rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in 1804, tracing his whole life from childhood until his death in 1817.

In a world collapsing from climate chaos and civil unrest, a boy loses the girl he loves to a series of freak weather events. When she returns, she's not alone — she brings the end of the world with her.

Apart from showing the situation in Serbia at that time, the parallel course of the story follows the release of the young writer Nusic from prison and his arrival at the villa of King Milan, where he begs for pardon for the satirical song “Two Slaves” whose publication provoked the king’s anger.

In an Eastern town, a young gang leader is terrorizing his neighbourhood. He forces everyone to carry a brick as a sign of submission. One day, an adoles-cent humiliated by the "tyrant" decides to fight back.

A short love story about birth, life and death of video rental stores in Belgrade, Serbia.

In Matejevac, a small town in southern Serbia, there are 300 men, nearly a third of the male population. There are places to meet women, since they prefer to live in the city, instead of staying on the field. In Peca, a musician who plays the accordion, has decided to marry them all.

Using sequences from one of Yugoslavia’s most popular television series, “A Better Life,” the work Fragments Untitled #2 reveals images that testify to the accelerated political and economic changes in Yugoslavia during the 1980s and in the early 1990s.

A 57-minute long-form music video illustrating the subjects including magic, the nature of reality and chaos - and honouring the works of Robert Anton Wilson, Terrence McKenna, KLF and Alan Moore.

The tavern "Jablan" existed in the 1980s and was located in a small village, Jugovo Polje, in Croatia, SFRY. "Jablan" was a symbol of "brotherhood and equality" for its owners, guests, musicians, and waiters. It was a place where people of different generations and education gathered - from workers and peasants to doctors, even music and sports stars of the '80s, it was a place where nationality and religious affiliation played no role. Nevertheless, the first shooting between Serbs and Croats took place in "Jablan", which heralded the war in Croatia and ended "Jablan's carefree days". The film protagonists reconstruct the events, from the day the tavern was created, to its destruction, witnessing how a place of love and joy became an object of hatred and destruction within a few months.

Nine-year-old Punam Tamang, lives in Bhaktapur, Nepal. She lost her mother when she was five years old and since that time she has been the family caretaker to her small siblings while her father works from dawn till night. Punam tells us her story and she introduces us to her family, neighborhood, teachers, and friends.

Twenty years after World War II, a young boy discovers an abandoned grenade. Driven by curiosity, his innocent play turns into a moment of danger that threatens his life.

Documentary about one of the best female football players in Yugoslavia, Slavka Kanjevac.

The story of the life of a Serbian prince Rastko Nemanjić - Saint Sava.

Spring 2020. The coronavirus pandemic has broken out. Theaters have stopped working. Rehearsals of plays have been suspended. Silence, emptiness, ominous silence. Nevertheless, director Ana receives an offer to dramatize and direct “The Goalkeeper's Fear of Penalties”, a masterpiece by Peter Handke. It is a great challenge and a chance to jumpstart her stalled career. The problem is that the creative process emotionally inhibits her and blocks her sexuality, but with the persuasion of her best friend Sanja – Ana nevertheless embarks on the creative process. The director is faced with typical theatrical folklore.

Follows an elderly man living in isolation, weaving together a tapestry of dreamlike visuals as it records the routines of his daily life. Surrounding mountains, a burning stove and animal companions offer solace and warmth.

A story inspired by the largest single rescue mission of downed Allied airmen behind enemy lines in aviation history of all time, codenamed “The Halyard Mission”. This action took place in the summer of 1944. It was led by the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland that was headed by General Dragoljub “Draža” Mihailović. It was at great cost and sacrifice that the Serbian people saved 508 American and other Allied countries’ airmen from certain death, sending them off to safety from the improvised airfield in the Serbian village of Pranjani, at the foot of Mt Suvobor.

On the way to his homeland with the intention of committing suicide, the mysterious protagonist encounters two hunters and a bizarre series of events takes place.

Through archival footage of his parents' wedding, the filmmaker reflects on love and marriage in contemporary Serbia. Observing traditional Balkan rituals, he questions his own place as an LGBT individual in a society resistant to equality. The film explores the tension between tradition and modern love, and the hope for a future where everyone can experience love freely. Through his personal journey, he confronts family expectations and dreams of acceptance.

The Gift of Forgetting explores how the memory of World War II in the post-Yugoslavia region has been transformed into a tool of political manipulation. The film follows the ways in which historical facts are gradually reshaped, relativized, or instrumentalized within contemporary national narratives.

Gorani people live in Gora, in the south of Kosovo. They are Muslims who speak a Slavic language. Throughout the years they were always used for political games of power between the surrounding nations (Serbs, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Bosnians...). This is the first film that deals with the way these people are, not who they are or who they belong to. The film observes their everyday life, diverse culture, rich herds of cows, sheep and shepherd dogs. They work, talk, dance, play music, discuss, preach, pray, walk and sing as the mountains above remind them how ephemeral their existence is.

Serbia in the late 1990s. Prison cell. Vjeran, a Belgrade transvestite arrested for prostitution. Nikola, a political prisoner and organizer of demonstrations against the regime of Slobodan Milosevic.

Petar is a retired detective and all he has left is his daughter Iskra. His pensioner's days are interrupted when Iskra disappears. The pursuit to find Iskra begins and the investigation takes Petar back to his past.

The story of two inseparable friends born on the same day of the same year. As they grow up, their unique, idyllic world—understood only by them—begins to crumble when one of them finds a boyfriend.

A man's relentless quest to protect his love and their utopia from mighty forces spans unknown worlds. His unwavering will challenges the Universe itself in an unrelenting battle to defend their paradise.

A young man visits his grandmother in Belgrade, as he thinks she’s not well. A summer day spent in her vibrant neighborhood among food, beverages, and old acquaintances triggers in him a sense of not belonging.

Short film by Miljana Niković

Germans settled in Vojvodina in the late 17th century. In time, customs and traditions were assimilated and former newcomers became natives and locals. However, WWII puts former neighbors to the test and reveals the best and worst in people. Defeated, collectively guilty, their trace will vanish. What is left is Vojvodina and places they inhabited, quiet witnesses and silent traces of existence.

Niko nema ovakve ljude! (trans. No One Has This Kind of People!) is the live/video album by Serbian rock band Riblja Čorba, released in 2010. The album was recorded on the band's concert held on October 10, 2010 in Belgrade Arena. The album featured two CDs and one DVD with the recording of the concert.

Vida and Bane are married couple who have been living in Scandinavia for a long time. They have successful careers, enough money for a decent life and a dog, but they do not have children.

Captain Stosic tries to make a comeback to his old love - flying.

Former criminal is followed by female assassin in Belgrade.

Boogie is switching from street photography to a series of portraits using the antique collodion wet plate process at his Belgrade studio. Only to find out that the most unusual manifestations of human nature can be found in photographing people in this technique. He refers to this series as “Demons”. This procedure is exclusively related to Belgrade. Unlike other cities where dark content is found in everyday life of people from margins, in Belgrade this content is found among acquaintances and friends. Boogie is able to capture something profoundly, demonically, and in the character of the “ordinary people” represented thanks to this unusual technique of the long exposure photographing procedure. Boogie describes this procedure as an alchemical one that can capture something “from the other side”.

In their most vulnerable moments, women reveal the deep connections between mind and body — at once fragile and endlessly strong. Filmed in a women’s clinic, the film takes shape as a quietly persistent whole, resonating like the beat of a woman’s heart, from the first breath to the last.

In the village of Temska, a group of students organizes a festival of documentary film. They hope to bring together the inhabitants of the village, as it was decades earlier. Documentary films released, and the festival itself allow the residents to revive the memories of the past.

In the form of an anthology film on psychiatric subject, it offers reflection on various situations that occur in the waiting rooms and hospitals of a psychiatric institution. Time flows differently there, the boundaries between mental health and mental illness are shifting, frustrations are emerging, which puts doctors and patients even.

A young village girl is forced to marry a deceased young man in order to save her family.

A med student gets a job at the mortuary where he discovers his penchant for necrophilia.

A short based on true events from 1943 when Croatian Nazi (Ustasha) military officer named Zile Friganovic killed 1100 Serbian civilians for a bet.

This story is not only about Niki Pilic's achievements as a player ) but his legacy as trainer of Novak Djokovic, Boris Becker, Michael Stich, Ivan Ljubicic, Goran Ivanisevic.

What happens when to the Balkans, famous for its hospitality, witty and resourceful inhabitants, comes a stranger determined to find the love of his life? Of course, nothing is predictable here, not even in this hilarious comedy in which the least expected characters and situations will appear! What the true Balkan soul, nature and humor are, will be seen in this spectacular film where nothing is as it seems, entangles and unravels. In the galaxy of famous actors, you will also see people you would not expect to recognize. Which ones? Well, welcome to the Balkans, everything's possible there!

People accustomed to living in urban areas gradually lost touch with the primordial and in the reduced presence of civilization began to feel a certain anxiety. Darkness occupied the spaces, changing their content and essence, leaving the exposed observer completely alone. The atmosphere of the film creates a feeling of alienation that insists on the discomfort caused by the mere presence of darkness. The boundaries between the external world and inner fear are erased, and darkness becomes all-encompassing.

Ena and Sale – both of them destructive and hungry for life – meet. As they are trying to interpret their feelings, the two are pressured by the burdens of their past and haunted by their fears. Through acts of aggression on the outskirts of a dirty city, they test the limits of their love.

Vera has young woman as the main heroine, who is in the jaws of the war spy network in WW2 and also of the patriarchal society in the Balkans with full of powerful, arrogant men with whom she deals bravely and arrogantly.

Young lawyer Jelena defends her ex-husband in court and at the same time has a date with handsome judge Stefan.

Jokes as a weapon of resistance: how satire sustains a beleaguered culture.

A young traveler, Bogdan Lazarević, faces a strange killer lurking in the shadows of a secluded hiking trail.

An important day in life of a guy who tests for HIV.

Low budget New Year's Eve comedy special.

An archival road trip with Stevan Labudović, cameraman to Yugoslav President Tito and cinematic eye of the Algerian revolution, investigating the role of cinema in the liberation struggles of the Third World and reconstructing the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Dragi, young intern with his experienced colleague went to the province on a business trip. Older colleagues has the task to introduce a younger colleague into the business. They are sellers of books. But time is socialism. How to sell a book?

Mile, a runaway boy from the orphanage, spends his days and nights on the streets, begging for money and food. Cast out and alone, he manages to get close with a group of boys living on the streets. His desire to belong somewhere gets him involved in a turn of events he could never imagine.

It is difficult to characterize Slobodan Tišma. He is unique and versatile. He wanders with joy throughout the artistic landscape, drawing it with his words since the early sixties. He started as a poet, he was a conceptualist, an "invisible artist" and a rock musician ("Luna"/"La Strada"- former Yugoslav New Wave bands). Currently, he is a prose writer, and sometimes he engages in minimalistic performances. Wearing different masks he moved from one artistic space to another breaking the stereotypes and creating an aesthetic phenomenon out of his own existence. His mainstay is margin. Through trees and ocean he communicates with the universe. He loves the game of seeking, and hiding again. He is a persistent walker. With his silent steps he pops up daily in the corners of Novi Sad, searching for his own pleasure. Similar to his writings, this film has no formal completeness and comprehensiveness. It wonders who Slobodan Tišma is.

Two eccentric brothers collect scrap material whose objects have access to the traumatic memories of their owners. These same memories are then used for therapeutic purpose where the owners give away their objects, and then face their suppressed past in the landfill. During the work, one of the brothers starts to doubt the motives of the other, and slowly a big secret that they can no longer deny is revealed.

After the apocalypse on Earth, seven people find themselves in an unknown space without any memories of who they are, or how they got there. One of them is convinced that they are all in her dream, from which she is trying to wake up by all means.

Having cult Serbian new wave band Šarlo Akrobata (Charlot the Acrobat) and their members as a central point, this film shows cultural milieu of the 1980s in Yugoslavia, and subsequent downfall of alternative culture in it.

40 days after the suicide of Branko, a former boxer, a local dandy from the blocks, loved by his surroundings, his son Luka becomes suspicious that someone actually killed his father. Following his intuition, Luka starts an investigation.

The hamsters live and work in Hamsterland, a perfect state with a perfect economy. The GDP grows steadily, there is no unemployment, and 100% of the population declare themselves to be happy.

The film is a black comedy that deals with privatization in Southeast Europe.

Great races of the “Danube equestrian group“ were held on the 27th May 1914 upon the old Calendar (the 9th June 1914 upon the new Calendar) on the occasion of opening a newly built race course in Belgrade outings spot called Topcider. That afternoon five horse races were held, of which four were recorded on the film tape. The atmosphere of the hot summer afternoon was captured in the film; also, there were recorded crowded grandstands, exterior of the King`s pavilion and Belgrade elite that gathered in this place, where ladies distinguished themselves with their lavish dresses.

Rodin's Kiss meets contemporary calculated egotism.