Discoveries from Yugoslavia World Cinema

Kids from the same block hold a court trial to local cat who ate their canary.

Following the death of his female cousin Marija, Moma sets out to her house where only her aunt lives. The old woman remembers Marija's awkward temper that left her unmarried and even led to a suicide of one of her courters. Based on a novel written by Momčilo Nastasijević.

Macedonian TV drama.

An elderly woman pays visit to her mother who resides in nursing home. Few days later she receives a telegram that the mother died, but it turns out that the address it was sent to was wrong. However the guilt of neglect starts to torment the mourning daughter nonetheless.

As Hitler's Nazi army invades Yugoslavia, a Serbian village girl joins the underground movement, falls in love with the Croat soldier Ivan who is an expert in blowing up trains, and inspires villagers young and old to aggressively participate in the resistance.

Documentary about Josip Broz Tito, made when he was still alive and ruling Yugoslavia.

Akademija Republika shows a group of people gathered around the club from 1981 until 1995 and how it changed and influenced the cultural and night life around them.

Old man Repovz recalls experiences of the WWII in an entertaining, comic way rather than tragic. A man breaks his arm to avoid being drafted; the other man shoots fire to scare enemy soldiers; love stories, as well as troubles with forced collectivization took place there. A partisan hero finds out that he lost her fiancee, but somewhat cheers up when his white horse comes back to him...

Zivko Nikolic portrays a Montenegrin village in the post-epic period, while at the same time presenting the sad reality in the form of poor, unfortunate and mentally handicapped people, whom the epics circumvents.

Neša Paripović's film N.P. 1977 (1977) is a film about a walk through the summer green city of Belgrade. In a way it´s a self-portrait of the artist who plays the main protagonist in the film. For the film title he has chosen his initials – as is the case with the two other films in a series of three produced between 1975-78.

Macedonian TV drama.

One lonely person wanders an absurd world searching for happiness.

Story of a small group of people who think there is going to be an attack by a group of rabid animals. They perceive this danger through a trance they invoke by hitting their heads against a stone. They decide to oppose their enemy, and a fierce clash takes place.

Ilija is a night guard in a factory. One night he oversleeps and is awoken in the morning by a radio report of his death. He tries to contact his employers to clear up this misunderstanding but the world around him starts breaking apart.

A single, divorced mother with a boy, resists the advances of truck drivers from her working class milieu, disappointed with her former experiences. However one of the drivers looks for a serious relationship and family.

The council of an old Slavic tribe makes unrighteous decision by giving the best looking girl Voljenka to Kohan the warrior. Voljenka is in love with Dalibor, who tries to prove his courage by fighting with Kohan, and therefore drive the council to change their original decision.

A scientist builds a robot, and sets it to cleaning up his lab while he sleeps. The robot rebels, and creates two small robots; they create various forms of mischief while he sleeps, including trapping him and the inventor for a while.

A feature-documentary story about the way of fishing on Lake Dojran, with the help of cormorant birds. It talks about the connection between people and birds that are the best workers and irreplaceable assistants to fishermen. When the birds are gone, the fishermen are sad, but when the birds come, the fishing can begin.

The documentary illustrates the most exciting stages of the 14th Canoe and Kayak World Championships held in 1975 on rivers Radika and Treska in Macedonia. The sports event, passionate in its phases, constitutes a contribution of friendship between people.

An abstract, minimalistic showpiece of late structuralist film made up of 360-degree pans across a children’s playground – and to one of the gods of his cinephilic pantheon, Anthony Mann. In concrete terms, he alludes here to a scene in Mann’s Glenn Miller Story in which black-and-white documentary material from the Second World War is in experimental film fashion nightmarishly intercut into a scene, breaking with Hollywood conventions.

After a 1958 accident at the Vinca nuclear institute, six workers are irradiated and wind up becoming the first receivers of a bone marrow transplant in the world.

Story of people in a camp, situated on a small island and ruled by Nazis.

The story of people from the outskirts of town. Luca, who lives with her adult son, longs for understanding and happiness. Dana and Ona maintain tombs and sell flowers. Their daily routine is filled with small worries and big dreams. Wanting more than he can accomplish, her son goes to jail and Luca meets a prison educator. Much-anticipated bond appears in sight.

A former partisan Tone, who once believed in the idea of a new, just society, now barely living as a municipal employee. Has an ex-wife and daughter, who live in his apartment, and he lodger. Even his relationship with a waitress, Magda is not without problems.

Vera returns from abroad to her homeland in order to sell her parents’ old house. There she meets her ex-boyfriend, and the old romance sparks up again. Is she going to be strong enough to return to her old life?

The film, among other things, is about the division of sofra, which was eaten by 86 members of a large family because of their deceived daughter-in-law and then the amid. After splitting instead of one, a fire will be lit on several hearths. After that, the land is broken and divided, and when the land is divided, the hayvan is broken, so there are not one of the eight oxen ... and in the evening they returned home to feed their children.

Movie adaptation of the history novel by August Senoa, about Matija Gubec, the leader of peasant revolt of 1573.

The elderly inhabitants of a village in Vojvodina look back on the war and the partisan battles. The film also examines how collective memories and myths enter the individual consciousness.

A TV film depicting life of the famous inventor.

Social drama that explores issues of social justice in Yugoslav pre-war society. Marko, an honest, ordinary working man comes into conflict with the executive director in his company.

A Grand Guignolesque grotesque which happens in the dusk of one of those imaginary nights when everything is possible. The scene takes places in a village’ inn and cemetery located one next to the other: joyful and always tipsy guests from the inn continuously meet mischievous vampires who, with their jokes, bother their brothers from this world.

The village of Trimojevici (Montenegro) consists of a single household – an old, blind woman who lives alone and does her daily chores by herself.

A village fella tries to make it big in the city.

A story about a housekeeper who dreams of getting married for a man in Australia whom she haven't met yet.

The film describes the suffering of a character who is renovating his house while being confronted with a monstrous bird which is terrorising and oppressing him. It should be read as a parable of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. The film was subject to severe criticism at the 1970 Oberhausen film festival in Germany in 1970, in particular from directors from South American communist countries.

At the very end of the WW2, two Croatian Home Guard soldiers run home in German uniforms. They managed to save their lives and spent most of their time stealing chickens and eggs for their superior officer. Their uncertain journey ends with the last task: to escort the arrested partisan agent.

Macedonia on the turn of the century is enslaved by decaying Ottoman Empire. Freedom fighters, in order to raise money for their cause, kidnap American lady who works in Protestant mission.

Year 1945. The second World War is over and the soldiers from the disbanded army are returning home. Yet there is still no sign of Joze Malek.

In 1878, during the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the commander of the gendarmerie station in Sokolac was given the task of suppressing the Hajduk movement in that area. The commander asks the arrested and wounded hajduk leader to hand over his comrades.

Short film.

Experimental film by Ivan Martinac.

A boxer tries to recover from the memories he brought back from war.

A video art based on “Zaludna mistrija” (A Vain Trowel) by Bogdan Bogdanovic, a book that deals with indoctrination and practical use of golden (black) numbers.

"Povratak na rodno drvo" is a Yugoslav short film from 1968. It was directed by Vlatko Gilić and the screenplay was written by Matija Bećković.

Macedonian TV drama.

An unfinished comedy about a beauty and sailors set in an island in the Adriatic Sea.

Filmed in 1968, "Little Pioneers" examines the gap between socialist rhetoric and social reality by focusing on children excluded from state protection. Through close, unembellished observation, Želimir Žilnik documents young people living in slum conditions and surviving through informal and illegal means, using the film’s ironic title to underscore the contrast between official ideology and everyday life.

The story of a man who has reached the very top of society and eventually became a victim of his own ideology.

As Yugoslavia begins to unravel, the workers of industrial complex at Rakovica struggle to survive inside a system that once promised dignity and solidarity. Told from their perspective, Žulj (Blister) captures the anger, exhaustion, and disillusionment of a generation abandoned by political elites far removed from working-class life.

A man is sitting at the table eating. He is interrupted by the sound of the bell ringing at someone’s door. In his troubled mind he sees his childhood, the war, his parents in a Jewish ghetto and all possible forms of aggression, which he has experienced right up to this day…

A biographical television film which tells about the life of the famous Serbian painter Nadezda Petrovic.

TV film adaptation of the play Aleksandra written by Tome Arsovski.

Rade is in love with Milica, but her father Marko, a village butcher, does not approve. He wants his son to finish school and leave the village. Marko buys a sick cow from Milica's father, puts a false stamp on it, and sells the meat as if it were healthy. Rade finds out that his father has been doing this for a long time, and so he comes into conflict with him.

An episode from "A Bird and a Worm" series. Unable to fly by itself, a bird watches longingly a group of merry fliers. Seeing that even a snail has figured out how to fly, the bird gets an idea and makes its own flying machine. But the device falls apart quickly and the bird crashes down. When the furious bird notices its worst enemy, the worm, coming out of the makeshift aircraft, the chase begins.

A man and a woman, each with a stable marriage of their own, meet in the wagon compartment. The short encounter of two strangers causes restlessness within their personal views about the world, implying possible romance. Once the train reaches its destination, they go apart without a single word spoken, and return to their world of security.

After decades of work in Italy and Germany, Giuseppe is retired and returns to his family home in Istria. He is lonely and his mother advises him to get married. She hands him over his father’s uniform from the Austro-Hungarian army. Giuseppe sets off on a quest to find a wife in the “transitional East” hoping to be warmly welcomed. The road takes him to Budapest, Montenegro, Vojvodina. His plan is not so easily realised...

A blacksmith's wife turns each night by black magic his apprentice into a horse and leaves with him for a witch haunt.

Written and performed in 1968, Night and Fog is, in Kiš’s words, “a set of lyrical variations on the theme of time and memory”. After 20 years, Andreas Sam returns to a Hungarian village where he spent the war years. Each of the three characters-Andy, Mrs & Mr.Rigo – sees the past in their own way.

Goal! is a witty satire on football and the passion that flares up around that sport. Personified animals appear as characters in this film: an affinity for Disney’s world dominates again. The screenplay was written by Norbert Neugebauer, and he was also director. Borivoj Dovniković works as the main cartoonist and animator, and his assistants are Zlatko Grgić, Turido Pauš, Vjekoslav Radilović and Branko Karabajić. Scenography was created by Oto Reisinger, and music by Milutin Vandekar.

The subject is the contrast between old and new Split. Journalist Duje lives in a new apartment in a large green skyscraper, but his heart is drawn to his childhood, where he meets old neighbors and for a short time experiences their sorrows and joys, witnesses their quarrels and misunderstandings, but also moments of togetherness and solidarity. Most of the action takes place in the common yard where the neighbors meet at every opportunity. The sudden illness of old Domina brings excitement into their lives and creates unusual complications that will bring changes to the peaceful everyday life of these good-natured people.