Discoveries from Yugoslavia World Cinema

Based on a story by Nobel Prize-winner Ivo Andrić. When a young man's affair with a married woman ends disastrously he spurns the girl he'd once loved. She reacts to his contempt by becoming the town harlot.

Communist party commissar Ivica is sent to the lowland village to monitor the local partisan squad. Despite their disagreements he befriends their leader Dikan and they plan to evacuate the chief headquarters. Dikan also sees the opportunity to have his personal revenge on an enemy officer, responsible for death of one of his men.

A village blacksmith Sekula, hard-muscled but soft-hearted, has terrible luck when it comes to love. Many women pass through his house - a local spinster of ill health, a belly dancer, a veterinarian experienced in the castration of bulls a singing star-to-be - but stay just long enough to give birth to another child, only to then run away.

The story of two workers who returned from abroad. One of them wants to find a good job, Adam, and the other one wants to earn money by smuggling, Beli. Between them two there's young woman, Mila, who has had experience with the second one. Running away from the man who is the incarnation of evil for her, she is trying to find happiness and peace with another one in vain.

An emigrant returning after many years, is killed while trying to clear his name of treason. Investigation produces several skeletons.

Having learned of the love affair between his wife and his colleague, a train driver finds himself in a dilemma: only one move is enough to kill his opponent in a train accident that they've found themselves in.

A story about young orphan girl who was rejected by her mother.

Belgrade during the height of the war Yugoslavia in 1999. Kaja struggles with daily destruction and the constant threat of being drafted, but also with his impending divorce from his wife Tijana, who wants to emigrate with their son.

It describes the social process of stratification in the Serbian countryside during late 19th century, which occurs with the penetration of the commodity-money in the countryside. Under new conditions, peasants and farmers are unable to adapt, and rot under the burden of debts.

A story about a young man tempted to kill his rival for a girl, only to find out that he may be his illegitimate son. The story is set in XIX century Dubrovnik.

Movie about secret relations between Yugoslavian, Serbian and Croatian secret police during last 50 years. Here in Balkans truth and lies are so much mixed and it lasts so long that no one knows the difference. That is why this fictitious story looks so true.

After the road accident, Zika and Milan end up in an overcrowded hospital, run by doctor Nedeljkovic and his sexually obsessed nurse. Accompanied by a crazy bandmaster and a peasant with farting problems, they will try to get away from the ongoing chaos.

In attempt to find out who he is and where his roots lie, Alija Osmanović discovers something far deeper and more important. He slowly discovers an evil that follows him as his destiny regardless of what his ancestors were called. Trying to find the reasons for this evil, he finds himself in a vicious circle. Running away from an irrational fear within him, he eventually finds the road to his faith.

Based on real events in Macedonia during the Ottoman era. The plot revolves around a number of Macedonian revolutionaries battling against a large Ottoman-Turkish Army.

Valent is a night shift worker who can barely feed his family. To add the insult to injury, every night he must pass near the butcher's shop with meat products he can't afford. But one night the shop is a scene of a gangland shooting. Valent picks up the bag full of money and a gun, and his life changes.

A cult stage play from the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo, which involves the professor and the gallery of grotesque candidates devoid of any talent who applied for entrance exams.

The German police cannot solve the mystery of the seven murders which have alarmed the local villagers. They call in Inspector Doren of Interpol, and the only clue the Chief Constable can give the detective is the fact that, each time a murder was committed, the electric lights in the whole neighborhood went out. The locals believe that the killings of the young girls are linked to the vague shadows in the caves under the local castle and to the mysterious Curse of the Green Eyes.

A street cop is picked by the national security service in order to carry out an important and delicate task. His mission is to go undercover and infiltrate a dangerous international cabal of homosexuals.

It’s the winter of 1942. A freight train on the section of the Slavonian railway Vinkovci-Nova Gradiska is under a special Gestapo escort. Fleeing misfortune and evil brought by war, the last wagon is the place of encounter of politicians, war smugglers, deserters and tamburitza players.

An eminent Belgrade physician is found murdered. The investigation reveals dark side of his character - illegal abortions and abuse of his wife. The wife's lover becomes the prime suspect. The newspaper reporter, however, starts his own investigation. Besides being a crime story, this movie in quasi-documentary fashion presents alternative cultural scene of Belgrade in late sixties.

With magic inflatable objects that spring to life to fill his every need, a flippant beachgoer wants for nothing. Well... almost nothing.

A lighthouse keeper lives on an isolated island together with his wife, ailing father and retarded sister. News of a serial killer stalking the isolated lighthouses makes him leave in order to hunt him down. In the meantime, the wife meets a mysterious and seductive stranger.

Driven by the trauma of the Holocaust, a young Jewish man arrives in a small town to hunt down the former commandant of the concentration camp where his family was exterminated. Upon discovering that the man has been released after serving only a minimal sentence, he prepares to exact his own brand of justice.

A 1980 Serbo-Croatian language short film directed by Dimitrije Jovanovic, starring Ljiljana Krstic, Branislav Jerinić and Radmila Andrić.

A beautiful but ailing girl is married to a harsh man who doesn't care for her. Only after she dies does he realize that he actually loves her.

People need a leader. Someone has to lead them, even if he is sick. The man in black stands at the bus stop and warns anyone who comes to stand in line. The queue is getting longer. When the bus arrives, the man lets the people in line enter in front of him, and when he prepares to enter, paramedics come and take him away.

Psychological action drama about a group of partisans, ambushed by the enemy.

The action takes place in 1943 and today, and a Partisan school in Srem is in the center of action. A young journalist gets appointed to shoot a film report about the participants in the Liberation War from this area. In Srem village she meets common, simple people. She discovers that a free territory and a Partisan school was there. She also finds out that everybody acted as one. Deply going through all of those events, young reporter grows mature, identifying herself with the revolution participants.

The film follows a life of a homeless, but very well read, Marxist who is coping with Che's death and wishes to live a life of revolutions and workers' uprisings. He is a hypochondriac, bitter at the world, and blaming his old capitalist boss for his life's misery.

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.

After a train breaks down and the passengers are forced to spend a day at a remote country tavern, the mix of seasonal farm workers, transients, musicians, and would-be party kingpins heads toward some explosive moments. A truckload of chickens arrive to be killed and cooked for the unruly group of passengers, and when a few boorish men harass a female singer, their actions lead to unexpected violence.

Belgrade in 1992. - breaking up of Yugoslavia, blockade, shortages, food queues, student rebellion. Life of two Belgrade families and personal drama of their members, caused by social breakdown and civil war.

A Yugoslavian spoof of Dirty Harry and James Bond movies. A young inspector called Crazy Head goes after bandits that do not hesitate to use all kinds of vicious means in their shady ventures.

The setting is the islands off the Dalmatian coast of Yugoslavia, during WW II. The islands are controlled by occupying Italian forces, and a resistence movement of Communists is dedicated to sabotaging and ending the occupation. When a wealthy young man joins the resistence, he falls in love with a woman who turns out to be a spy for the Italians. As a result of his liaison and her activity, they are both executed by a Communist comrade - a previous friend. The comrade is dedicated to the hard-line policies of the resistence, until he himself falls in love with the daughter of a bourgeois landowner on the island - a landowner who has collaborated with the Italians. Neither the Italian occupying army (one officer is shown in an attempted rape scene) nor the resistence fighters are stereotyped forces for good or evil, but all are equally subject to the dehumanizing effects of war.

The numerous ways of fishing in Katlanovo Lake and the customs surrounding fishing that no longer exist due to the drying up of the lake.

The manager of an export-import company meets a young girl who claims that her parents have been taken their house away after WW2. After finding out this to be true, he offers to marry her which she accepts. However, it turns out that the house needs thorough restoration. Since his salary is not enough to cover its massive expenses, he puts his honesty on test.

Overcome by an irrational rage, a 17 year-old hatchet man kidnaps his boss who had managed to cover up his true identity and become part of the establishment. The Kid takes this one time hero of his to a hideout in a huge, deserted steel mill where the two experience a kind of enlightenment after some twenty hours of infernal games and agony.

A fugitive girl, a stuntman and a young man who lost his dog quite some time before, are joining together on a trip to reach each of their own destination. A youngster gets emotionally connected to the girl, and he'd try to help her to leave the bossy stuntman, to get false passport and escape to Paris.

Jagoda Kopriva is a typical teenage girl who hangs out with her friends from school, flirting with boys, quarreling with her parents, and discovering her own sexuality.

A man devoted to his marriage and long-time partner is shaken by an encounter with the pretty young lady who was secretly infatuated with him while she was still a girl.

By a twist of fate, Damjan is mistaken for a murderer who was prowling the streets of Ljubljana in the same neighbourhood. Because of his naive, friendly approach and helpfulness, his wife walks out on him and the police have doubts about his sanity. Is Damjan really losing his memory like his father did before him? And does purity of mind and spirit necessarily lead to a person's downfall? Will Damjan, who is mysteriously attracted and connected to the cinema and who finds himself drawn into a case of mistaken identity (just like in the movies) succeed in setting his life in order in spite of the mix-up and in finding the right companion for himself?

Story of the early maturity of a boy, which confirms the old pedagogical truth that life, joy and trouble that man carries with himself, are best teachers.

In the first days after the Second World War, as collaborators are being taken care of, a former partisan finds out that war never truly ends — not even in time of peace.

A young officer, after finishing the Military Academy as the best in his class, suddenly and with no visible reason, leaves his home town, girl, parents, safety and eventual career and leaves to a remote provincial town to find and create his life and destiny. The story of a lonely man without illusions and bitterness, who collects simple pieces of sense, humanity and love through his actions.

One night, after a disastrous traffic accident, witnesses reported seeing a woman behind the wheel who fled the scene. In reality, it was four teenagers who stole a Peugeot 404 for a spin. Later, one of them got out and began hitchhiking, while the others were involved in a fatal accident after being chased by the police shortly afterward. The police continue their intensive search for the fourth teenager.

Yugoslavian filmmaker Goran Markovic directs the psychological drama The Cordon. Set in Belgrade over Easter weekend in 1997, the film involves a group of policemen who respond to the city's political turmoil. Due to the overthrow of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, violence and protests have erupted all over the city. Patrolling the streets in a bus driven by Uros (Ratko Tankosic), the unit consists of Crni (Dragan Petrovic), Dule (Nikola Duricko), Kole (Nebojsa Milovanovic), and Seljak (Nenad Jezdic). They are led by commanding officer Dragon (Marko Nikolic), who isn't entirely sure what to do himself. Throughout their weekend-long shift, each man battles with his own personal problems as the political tension escalates. The Cordon won the top prize at the 2003 Montreal World Film Festival.

In a small seaside town in the middle of tourist season, an old eccentric, Ugo Bonacic, is murdered. The homicide inspector leads the investigation, which directs him to a strange foreigner dressed in white, who came to town with an American diving representation. During the investigation, he finds out that old Ugo had a copy of one Titian paintings, for which unusual legend is bind. Finally, a new version of an old Titian painting legend is cleared up.

Two boys, Kekec and Rozle, come to serve a farmer, with a blind daughter Mojca, as shepherds. As the night falls, the two boys start talking about a woman who lives in the mountains and is supposed to steal children. Her name is Pehta. In the morning, Kekec, Rozle and Mojca go to an Alpine cottage and Kekec promises Mojca that he will find her a remedy for her eyes. As the girl is picking flowers, Pehta arrives and takes Mojca into her cottage. She wants to keep Mojca because of her singing.

The lives of many people in one Serbian town are changed after Tito's breakup with Stalin.

The war is over. Children without mothers and fathers, children of fighters who fell for freedom...This is the story about such boys who placed in the homes for children of fallen soldiers. One of these homes was especially for boys with gift for music. One of them was a boy named Goran. he and his best friend exchanged violins. The difference in violins was only in color, but this one reminded him strangely of the past he past. All his boyish feelings and is tender memories of his mother killed in war, Goran put into his music, producing wonderful sounds on the dark violin. But it was this violin that caused many misunderstanding in the Home.

Naturalistic and almost documentary account of the heroin addicts in Belgrade, in the form of a sad life story of young girl and her wasted life.

A TV drama about the decline and fall of the Russian middle-class family. Based on the work by Maxim Gorky, a four-act drama first published in 1908.

At 56 years of age Mita Pantić (Nikola Simić) is still only a junior clerk in his company. Another typical workday for him is starting at 6 a.m. as frustration awaits at every turn from the moment he gets up. Trying to get ready to go to work, he can barely get a turn to use the bathroom in the crowded apartment. Other members of the household are not without their frustrations either, meaning that nagging and shouting are a staple of their home life at any time of day.

Urban comedy, happening during a night in Belgrade. Mare, Pop and Gojko are three friends who grew up together. Mare and Pop have always been musicians, while Gojko (who was harassed by them in school and nicknamed 'Sissy') became a 'guy in suit', boss of his own club and recording studio.

Young farmer Mikajlo while on youth labour action falls in love with a student Nada and infatuated with her, he leaves the peasant brigade and Malena, a girl who as if she were overabundant, followed him to work the labour action. Mikajlo's courtship of Nada provokes laughter and ridicule, so ambitious 'Don Juan' returns to his brigade and the girl.

The entire movie is shot in one take. It shows how a command is twisted from the moment it was given by a colonel to the moment it reaches a regular soldier.

In 1928 young Communist activist was arrested and put on trial for anti-state activity. Years later he became known as Tito, Communist president of Yugoslavia, and this TV-movie was made for the 50th anniversary of those events.

Young and Healthy as a Rose follows Stevan Nikolić, "Stiv", a petty criminal born in Belgrade, and his rise to power along with drugs, sex and with the help of the local police.

Belgrade in 1963. In a yard surrounded by buildings, a group of young people of different backgrounds and social status, but of similar views about love and self-affirmation, spend their time together. Their friendship is dyed with various events typical for socialism, such as working actions or Youth Day's parade. All what happens within this yard may become an allegory of one generation's destiny.

In the suburban environment of 1960s Belgrade, thieves and vagabonds were first who escaped from poverty, while simple individuals who believed in ideals, paid a costly price for their misconceptions. Life is very difficult to a family of a pilot who spent 14 years in prison on the basis of false testimony. Her husband's prosecution is his wife's fate, while his daughter doesn't even know that her father is alive. After many migrations and wanderings, the mother meets a soft-spoken yet unscrupulous man who'll promise her marriage, and rape her daughter. The mother eventually ends up at asylum, and the father returns from prison at the right time to help their daughter in life which crucial lessons she already mastered.