Discoveries from Yugoslavia World Cinema

TV adaptation of “The Net”, a collection of short stories by Erih Kos.

A love triangle drama set in the Balkan mountains where local man and foreigner fight for woman's love.

Two young “women from dreams” unexpectedly enter the senile longing and boring everyday life of two poor and aging Dalmatian fishermen. They cannot refuse their desire to row out to sea together, even though foreign women speak a language that these old men do not understand at all.

A horror writer starts to model his stories off of real life and he's not prepared for what follows.

Koka is a woman who does not find understanding for herself either in her daughter, or in her brother, or in her immediate surroundings. She left behind a bitter experience of a failed relationship with her ex-husband Jezdimir, but also the current disappointments.

"Don Kihot" is a satirical, Klee-esque meditation about Don Quijote in the contemporary militaristic and regimentistic world.

A TV biopic about the life of Milena Jesenská (1896-1944), a Czech journalist, writer, editor and translator.

A mono-drama with Josip Pejakovic in the main role.

A classic comedy from the most famous Serbian comedy playwright, Branislav Nušić.

Lika, Austro-Hungarian Empire, the year is 1918, the last year of WWI. In a wasteland rocky area, among ravines there is a small gendarmery police station with several gendarmes headed by sergeant Cokula. The area is controlled by a group of outlaws led by Todor nicknamed "The Terrible". Sergeant Cokula and Todor did not bother each other, until bandits robbed the emperor's inspector.

A lost educational film from Serbia.

Short documentary.

Television adaptation of the play "The Ballad of Petrica Kerempuh", based on the famous collection of Kajkavian songs by Miroslav Krleža.

Where will this door take me?

The story of a famous group of Macedonian terrorists that opposed Ottoman repression at the beginning of 20th century.

September 1945. The new communist authorities go into the church, hang the flag of the Party and paint over the old frescoes, but each time the frescoes miraculously return. A stranger comes to town and works miracles; the townsfolk are convinced he is the Messiah. Director Paskaljevic cut his TV miniseries, based on the novel by Borislav Pekic, to feature film length.

Film comedy about 19th century Serbian peasants who emigrate to the Wild West.

In the TV drama-essay, M. Pervić took Andrić's texts as a basis, and interpolated excerpts from other Andrić's works into their imagined meeting. Their meeting is permeated with reflections on art, the artist's relationship to life, and the wisdom that a writer and painter gain by doing their thankless, but only possible job for decades. As an interlude, Cervantes' one-act play The Case of Wonders was used...

Poor and unhappy, Rafael leaves Pauline and tries his luck at the roulette, but loses his last coin. Fate gifts him with the miraculous "Shagreen leather" that fulfills all wishes. In his new, luxurious life he wins the heart of wonderful Foedora. But with the power of the leather comes a rule: for every fulfilled wish it becomes shorter, and so does the life of its owner. Using the leather abundantly, Rafael soon spends his time.

Two themes arise from the story, themes that are interlocked: the theme of love and of man's eternal submission to traditional symbols. The director Živko Nikolić continues his movie saga of human nature. Both themes develop the mythical idea of temptation. It is basic human relation: from the intimate to the families' vying with each other.

Upon returning home at war's end, a young lieutenant discovers that his family has been murdered by the Nazis. It's all the handiwork of a treasonous "Chetnik," who during the war worked against the partisans on behalf of the Germans. In bitter retaliation, the lieutenant sets about to decimate the Chetnik's family. He stops short, however, when he realizes that the sins of the fathers are not always passed down to the innocent children.

Two brothers return to their devastated home village after the end of the Second World War with nothing to their name but their army-issue machine guns. There they find a traumatised German, abandoned in retreat. Together, the three men act out a tragicomic tale.

An experimental film about children around a mirror that addresses important issues about small people in a complex world in a free and poetic form.

An incarcerated patient, sees several young people, that discuss their innermost feelings.

The town of Dryland has been without rain for five months. Daniel the cloud, in charge of delivering rain to the town, is on holiday and no one can find him. A delegation of citizens go to Professor Balthazar for help. He invents a cloud tracer and sets out to find Daniel.

Macedonian TV drama.

Split shipyard worker's Mate, lives with his elderly mother and wife Mara, and trying to prove himself as a boxer. At the same time, his younger brother Luka drunk sex and fantasize about trip in Germany, embarks on a passionate love relationship with a young girl Orom, which was a bit sexually satisfied only him, his step father who thought he was father. The tense atmosphere seasoned with sea waves,can only bring tragedy.

It takes place in 1952 in a mountain village in Serbia. Unable to get used to the peacetime metropolitan life, young Major Dobrilo returns to his native village. But, some unsettled accounts from the war days will suddenly interrupt everything nice that started happening with Dobrilo’s arrival.

Pro-Nazi police arrests an ordinary man from the street because he is a dead ringer for a legendary resistance leader.

This is the story of a poor fisherman, who was looking for and wanted happiness. A quiet family life, filled with the love and care of a woman, was not enough for happiness. Happiness is luxury, wealth... thought the fisherman.

A metaphorical tale of subconsciousness.

In October 1941 the Nazis decide to crush a rebellion in Serbia by mass shootings of civilians. In the city of Kragujevac thousands of people, including entire high school classes, were rounded up and shot in one day. The movie follows the fate of one of such classes.

A thief commits daring robberies (a la Raffles) in Slovenia during the 1920s. While he romances the ladies a persistent detective tries to hunt him down and bring him to justice.

Macedonian TV drama.

The town of Split in the 1930s during Italian occupation. A boy torn between kid's games and sexual awakening finds more about the latter at the nearby whorehouse who works non-stop.

While playing, the children start drawing on the walls of the room. A painter comes to whitewash the flat. To entertain the children, the painter paints images on the walls. But even when he whitewashes over the picture he has painted for them, the children can still see it and are happy. No one knows about their secret gift from the painter.

After Laura's husband commits suicide, her lover Ivan Krizovec and her spend a torrid night together.

1964 Yugoslavian short film by Marko Babac.

A group of children build a loft in an abandoned yard, but instead of pigeons, a man and his two sons move into it. At first, boys try to get rid of the unwanted intruders, but eventually they befriend with them. However, the municipality sends their men to tear down the illegal housing, but the children decide to stop them at all costs.

This fantasy film is one of the early productions of Kosovar cinema that seeks to express the inner and poetic dimensions of love and nature.

A coming-of-age story set in Slovenian town during WW2.

Illustrations of human conscience in animated and real scenes.

The common motif of two stories is love and death. In the first story, a drama of love and adultery takes place with a tragic ending. In the second story, the environment of hospital asylum and the constant presence of death makes two diabetics carefully watching over an unknown man in coma.

The destiny of a family of iconographers in a monastery in Macedonia during the Kresna Uprising in 1878.

Zdravko Čolić is the biggest pop star in Yugoslavia. We follow him during his "Traveling Earthquake Tour", lerning who is the man behind the microphone, dancers, glittery suits... and in front of the audience.

Two illegal fighters hide from Ustasha regime in the abandoned villa from which Jews are expelled. Tensions arising from their situation mixes with thoughts of the previous owners of the place.

In 1940, shortly before the outbreak of war, a young boy Marjan lives a carefree life with his gang in Ljubljana, experiencing all the problems of his age. With Lenka he's experiencing his first "pure" love, while discovering sexuality... The Italian occupation brings many changes, gang breaks up, some join the liberation movement, the others join collaborationist forces. Marjan remain "unlisted". Italians surrender, and hand over the city to Germans. Frivolous Milena, who has good connections with them, seduces Marjan whom she lost her innocence with. The war is over and the partisans win. The new authorities mistakenly imprison Marjan.

A 1977 Serbo-Croatian language drama film directed by Slavoljub Stefanović-Ravasi, starring Jelisaveta ‘Seka’ Sablić, Petar Kralj and Mira Dinulović.

Short silent film.

A phantasmagoric story about an undertaker and his wife who live alone because everyone avoids them. The undertaker cannot break human prejudices and superstitions, and in desperation he invites his former customers, the dead, to be his guests and to banish loneliness from him and his wife.

Careless walkers, especially children, are often to blame for traffic accidents. Through an interesting story, with mister Pura and Vučko, the rules of street walkers’ behavior are shown to young viewers so they can understand the message of the film.

The film takes place in Skopje in the summer of 1963, just before the catastrophic earthquake.

One of the nails does not enter the tree at all, it can not be nailed. It is associated with dignity, endurance, steadfastness. One must always stand behind one's principles and determinations.

Ogg is a dreamer, a bizarre, unconventional being who enjoys playing and constantly makes up new situations. His true friend Eva is in vain trying to explain the real purpose of the object he is having fun with. In Ogg’s hands the umbrella will remain practically unused, but it will nevertheless turn into an extremely inspiring toy.

Deeply hurt by his wife's adultery, a man leaves her and his son to live high up alone in the mountains of Montenegro. Many years later, the war breaks out and the two enemy factions must cross the very mountain. One of them seeks the man's help to find a path through the snow. Later that day, he finds out that one of the other side's members is no other than his son.

After WW II many young people arrive to Zagreb, among them a young worker Sonja Kacar. She is supposed to participate in the construction of the first generator in the Rade Koncar factory. Because there aren't enough experts and materials in Yugoslavia, the factory counts on help from fellow communist countries, Czechoslovakia and Soviet Union. However, after the Inform Bureau's resolution this help is no longer available. Sonja experiences a great intimate disappointment because Stjepan, who she is in love with, supports Stalin.

A TV drama originally written by Vaclav Havel.

A film by Petar Milić.

Bojana Marijan joined the film club crowd (including Zilnik and Makavejev, her future husband) at Novi Sad where Zilnik had already set up the legendary production company Neoplanta. Her political argument is obvious, but in Vesela Klasa, as Amos Vogel puts it, “Instead of complaints there are lyrics, music and wine.”

The film tells the story of a Roma worker in the Zenica iron-works Arif Heralić, whose figure was on the ten thousand dinar bill. Heralić was seeking a monetary compensation for using his character on a banknote he did not receive. He died in 1971 as a disability work in extreme poverty.