Discoveries from Yugoslavia World Cinema

Adventures of an idealistic old Communist whose treasured watch is stolen by a magpie but who overcomes all difficulties.

A group of musicians, whose band is called "Balkan express", in fact a quintet of small-time crooks , trying to make some money in Nazi-occupied Serbia.

In one Vojvodinian castle, the preparations for the play that will be performed by members of the Association of the blind are in the process. The play is dedicated to the Jews from America who are supposed to come and visit the place of their ancestor's massacre in 1942, during a raid in Novi Sad. The plot was to be carried out according to the original stories of witnesses who have gone through this tragic event. However, the initiators of the show manipulate the blind people in order to smuggle bombs for Albanian terrorists.

The film was created based on the stories of Marino Zurl, head of humanitarian action of the weekly Arena newspapers, who from 1963 to 1971 was looking for the next of kin of children separated from their parents during World War II and taken to camps and shelters. Many of them later grew up in orphanages or foster families, like the three main characters of this film, Ana (Biserka Ipša), Nenad (Mustafa Nadarević) and Toma (Božidar Orešković). Each of them relates in a different way to the past and the possibility that, as young accomplished adults, they can finally solve the secret of their identity and meet members of their real families.

An urban story with elements of melodrama and comedy about the search for love, and the influence of horoscope and other otherworldly hobbies on Ana who recognizes the “right one” in the tram.

Belgrade rock musicians and critics talk about the glorious days of Yugoslav new wave that had its peak in 1981.

Early Croatian film adaptation of the play "The Two Orphans", a five-act melodrama set during French Revolution.

Young scientist Zare and his wife, a theater costume designer Mira, live in a rented apartment where they were under the pressure of curious and disturbing neighbors. Once Zare was given the keys of the Ethnographic Museum in Ohrid in order to sort out the situation in this museum, this means escape for the family.

Silent Gunpowder (Serbo-Croatian: Gluvi barut) is a Yugoslavian war film Based on a novel by Branko Ćopić and set during World War II, the film tells the story of a Serbian village in the mountains of Bosnia and its villagers who found themselves divided along two opposing ideological lines, represented by the Chetniks and the Partisans. These two opposing sides are personified in the Partisan commander Španac and a former Royal Army officer Radekić. Španac sees Radekić as the cause of villagers' resistance to the new, Communist, ideology and so the main plot axis is the conflict between them. At the 1990 Pula Film Festival, the film won the Big Golden Arena for Best Film, as well as the awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Branislav Lečić), Best Film Score (Goran Bregović). The film was also shown at the 1991 Moscow International Film Festival, where both Branislav Lečić and Mustafa Nadarević won the Silver St. George Award for their performances.

Village goverment has changed, father has authority no more, neither in his house and in the village, and the son decides to leave his father and switch sides, joining the new village goverment.

A look into lives of five girl friends, approaching thirties and unable to find full time jobs in Serbia. This existential crisis affects each of them differently.

A children’s classic story wrote by post-war authors, who, inspired by the real life of young people in that period of time, addressed their topical issues through depicting their unusual adventures. Thus many generations used to grow up along with the very popular Society of Pingoclavulus.

Two faces of an upper-class, urban family, centered around young married couple.

It is 1941 and the German occupying forces are taking over Yugoslavia, making a train ride to Kraljevo a dangerous game for a secret communist agent carrying important documents. Both the Germans and the police are looking for him on the train, and his safe arrival in Kraljevo seems like an impossibility. His determination to get the papers to the right people keeps him going, even through a gun battle after the train arrives - challenging him to find a way to complete his mission.

A wall blocks the path of two people. One man submits, while the other refuses to admit defeat.

A portrait of a restless young man in late-1960s Belgrade whose cool exterior masks deep dissatisfaction, violent imaginings, and a search for identity amid urban life.

A man who works in a travel agency sees his chance to quit his job and do nothing for a while after his wife found a job, but now all the kitchen work is up to him.

Follows the course of three different and independent relationships. The first in which a man renews a relationship with a former girlfriend. In the second a couple suddenly decide to marry, while in the third a couple are getting a divorce.

In a follow up to Dušan Vukotić's 'Čarobni zvuci' (Magic Sounds), the violinist returns to bring Spring into life. Animated film by Aleksandar Marks and Vladimir Jutrisa.

The Beauty of the Adriatic was created as a promotional tourist film, but through its unusual and even bizarre formal devices it overcomes the promotional function. The narrator of the film is constantly communicating with the viewer, exclaims and inserts jokes, and we also see him in the film as a guide entertaining us with various gestures and movements. In the film there are also interspersed humorous animated scenes, an interview with Hamlet, poetic sequences and stylized scenes such as one where the camera is "looking for" the lost guide.

A tale of dirty filmmakers' job, constructed in the form of collage consisting of authentic events, movie document, while also being an experiment. In the movie, real writer Radoslav Pavlovic and film director Dusan Sabo play themselves as other people, and others as themselves. They're trying to make a film about Kosovo... Cinema observed as parallel life. At the same time, it is homage to French New Wave classic "Breathless" by Jean-Luc Godard.

After so much unrequited love and so many failed marriages, yet with the heaps of children he's left with, Sekula decides to change his life and get serious, but it seems that it's too late for that, and the temptations keep growing...

A boy-poet from the village enrolls at the elementary school in the nearest city, but the other kids reject him for not being one of theirs. However, the real values emerge at the surface.

A three-part omnibus consisting of Kino Klub amateurs' work: Zivojin Pavlovic's dialogue-free "Live Waters" set in 1943, Marko Babac's "Warriors" about psychological look at the two patients in a hospital room, as well as Kokan Rakonjac's "Raindrops" about alcoholic's decaying relationship with his girlfriend.

The story of a man called "Moth", who becomes an entertainment star. Burdened with great popularity and entertainment events, he can not find his way around, and gets in series of comic situations.

A short documentary directed by Miodrag "Mika" Milošević that observes a game of table tennis through an emphasis on rhythm, timing, and physical movement. Using dynamic camerawork and precise editing, the film highlights the players’ gestures and exchanges, transforming a sporting event into a study of coordinated motion and visual pattern.

Village drama of love and hate among the Gypsies.

The last months in the life of a Serbian philosopher and socialist activist Svetozar Marković and his exile by the government of the Serbian Princedom.

A young man falls in love with the girl who he met by accident.

A TV adaptation of comedy novel by Jovan Sterija Popovic. In the manner of an experienced analyst, Sterija portrays the topic of finding a life companion as an essential need to build a life with seductive illusions, in which banality and kitsch are important building blocks.

True story about the brass band of a fire brigade during WW2.

Ivan Ivanović, a party functionary, arrives in a provincial town as a temporary replacement for a cultural official. The newcomer is fanatically eager to reform the town's cultural life in accordance with socialist ideals. He abolishes all five music societies and orders a monument of the town's most revered native, late composer Ciguli Miguli, removed from the main square. Ivanović's actions, however, meet stiff resistance from the townspeople, especially the youth.

Set in a Slovenian coastal town in WW2, the film tells a story about villagers who help partisans to get rid of Italian, and later German authorities that ruled the town in the last years of occupation.

Mačak is the best basketball player around the blocks of New Belgrade. Meanwhile, his friend is bullied by a local gangster Koma, whom he owns money. To pay off his debt, Mačak will play 1 on 1 with the rival player, eventually winning it. However, Koma doesn't stand on his promise, so Mačak decides to solve this problem the other way.

Professor of mathematics (played by Petar Kralj) confesses to the famous writer Ivo Andric (played by Tihomir Stanic). The professor’s psychological drama starts off when he picks up a package addressed to a certain lady. In her gratitude, the professor sees a discreet romantic sign.

A group of students with varying family backgrounds begin to question their lives and the hypocritical values of their corrupt socialist society. Their decision to follow their own ideals brings them in disrepute with those closest to them. Their support of one another finally brings them to realise a friendship based on loyalty and belonging.

Adaptation of Strindberg’s novel about a Swedish count’s daughter who is drawn to a senior servant, a valet named Jean, who is well-traveled and well-read.

Zoran is a graduate student of psychology and she gets a motorcycle as a present from his father. Being an unskilled driver, he stumbles upon a girl Biba and she breaks her leg. To prevent a possible lawsuit, he visits her in the hospital. They continue to see each other, and soon fall in love. Biba is a girl from suburban shanty, while Zoran comes from a well-to-do family, and his parents refuse to accept the girl. Young couple gets married and lives temporarily in Biba's home, where they drove out Biba's brother, a petty criminal. While looking for a new apartment, the marriage breaks down. Zoran shines at his exam with thesis on "People from socially broken families", while Biba gives birth to their child in the hospital.

A partisan battalion falls into enemy trap more than once, which makes them suspect it's about treason. Their commissar and commander move the unit in a remote settlement in order to discover the enemy agent. This draws a lot of suspicion and distrust within the unit, and finally it was the head of the battalion who was charged as guilty, and executed. However, was he the real intruder? The commissar and the commander take the battalion to a new battle without definitive knowledge of the whole present situation.

A group of Dalmatian guest workers from Germany come to their native town on Easter holidays. They usually spend time in a local pub playing cards, drinking and yelling. Jure is the most successful and bragging among them, while Klempo is considered poorest since he didn't built the house or bought a car. Annoyed by poor cards, Klempo places a bet with Jure that he made more money than him. The loser must give everything to winner and then walk around the town naked.

A young unemployed saxophone player Boki is pursued by debt collector agency, whose secretary tries to save him. Having reached his dead end, the racketeers give him a twelve hours deadline to find the money. He calls everyone he could remember and unsuccessfully begs for help. The time inevitably runs...

A semi-silent short film about a Croatian family moving to a new home. Their daughter comments everything in her homework essay.

Three stories (Love, Heart, The Hoop) set in the urban, alienated world of a big city. It tells how thin is the line between melancholy and depression.

Set in 1980 around Belgrade new wave scene, the film focuses on Pera, a frontman of a punk rock band.

Belgrade destiny brings together people with different kind of lives, people from various generations and backgrounds. What they have in common is rock music, the last anger at what has happened to us all.

Short animation inspired by traditional folk songs, telling the story of a young boy torn between two potential brides, one rich and one poor.

A provincial family looks forward to their new, cosy flat in the city blocks.

Two very different, but aging neighbors, Ratko and Krekich, share a rooftop terrace. Their settled lives are overturned by the arrival of an outgoing young girl, Andja, who takes the empty flat next door. But their dreams of revived youth and love and a better life, outside the strife of Yugoslavia's civil war, are short-lived as jealousy and army duty tear them apart.

The parents of a two boys remarried after divorce. The older one stayed with his father and his attractive young wife, while the younger one stayed with the mother and her new husband. On Sundays, the two boys visit the other family alternately, and the younger Djuro will soon realize that they have much more in common.

In a small motel located next to the highway there's nothing but boredom and laziness, but only until the waiter Raka gets promotion becoming a DE chief (Duty executor) of it. He becomes obsessed with his position in no time, start pushing everybody around and acting like a "Small God", introducing reorganization. The staff prepares their revenge upon the visit of the general manager of all motels to this so-called renovated facility.

The martyrdom of two workers who fall into the hands of the Gestapo during the occupation of Sarajevo.

In a construction company faced with the suspension of production due to lack of profitability, an engineer still believes in the effectiveness of his work in the province, however it affects the relationship with the girlfriend.

Radovan Orlak Orao fell off a skyscraper on the day when four of his old friends waited for him to celebrate his birthday. They had been friends since childhood, but now at middle age they see each other only occasionally. Faced with the fact that they actually knew very little about their friend’s recent life, they start meeting more regularly and try to find out the circumstances that led to Orao’s suicide or possibly even murder…

Seven women are sick of working in poor conditions on a farm. They steal a tractor and go to the city.

Dealing with his customers with open heart, a car mechanic named Života goes through many adventures. Some are funny, some are sad, some reveal beauty and other human misery. In the end he gets tangled up himself, and not without bitterness he tries to change his ways, to become like his rival across the street which has adapted to modern times: strictly business. But, people who come to him need him just the way he is.

Settlers from infertile parts of Yugoslavia, arrive to rich Slavonia and Baranja. There they are faced with the decree of the Communist government by which they will be left without the land that they received in the process of collectivization just a year ago. The peasants fiercely resist the government's decision. Milisa Matic is a peasant who fights against the establishment of peasant cooperatives because in that case many peasants would lose their newly acquired land. The Communist government has decreed the founding of cooperatives and Markan Radisic is in charge of their establishment. When Markan's son proposes to Milisa's daughter, the two men confront each other. In self-defense Markan kills Milisa, however the national court fails to find mitigating circumstances. On the way to prison he listens to the news on radio about the abolition of agricultural cooperatives.

Two retired, aging British officers meet in the club of special forces' veterans where they stress their conflicted views about WW2 in the former Yugoslavia. One of them was delegate with the Chetniks, while the other one was with partisans.

Instead of going to Belgrade, a boy called Mita joins illegal movement. Germans, who occupied Belgrade in the meantime, start to hunt down communists. Many of them are killed, but Mita succeeds to get to the freed land together with a girl who was going to Belgrade with him.

A day before the earthquake in Skopje, Wily Muller, a German conductor, while passing through the concert meets a young girl Jana, a student from Skopje. After several years they meet again at the "Solidarity Meetings" event, which is held in Skopje, where Wily Muller is a conductor at a concert held on that occasion. Those several days, spent together with the conductor, for Jana mean fulfillment with a kind of reminiscence of her family tragedy experienced during Skopje's earthquake, and also a wondering and search for a way of starting life again, which stopped on the day of the earthquake. Although the possibility of going with Muller is very attractive, Jana stays in Skopje. Her place is beside the young man whom she loves and belongs to, with whom she is related with true love...

A story about an old man who fights against physical and spiritual weakness that is overcoming him more and more.