Thursday, 9 April 2026 at 7 pm
The City
Marko Babac, Vojislav Kokan Rakonjac, Živojin Pavlović
1963, 80'
This omnibus about urban alienation consists of three films: Veza (also titled Love in some versions) by Vojislav Kokan Rakonjac tells a story about a loving couple who tries to overcome emotional distance with physical closeness; Mak Babac's Heart sets the backbone of the action in an unexpected meeting of three men while death is lurking around the corner; Živojin Pavlović's nocturnal film The Hoop follows a man from the fringes of society who plunges into the underground of the urban periphery.
This psychological drama uses cityscapes as the scene of contemporary alienation, pointing to the influence of the (sub)urban environment on hopeless, destructive psychological states and marginal modes of behavior. Although a modernist film by its theme and formal solutions, along with its refined camerawork, strong contrasts, and atmospheric soundscape, The City is often cited as the pioneer of the Yugoslav Black Wave. In the history of Yugoslav cinema, it is remembered as the first film banned in court: the conclusion of the court process was that by distorting reality, The City might have a harmful effect on young people. It remained banned from public screenings until 1990.
Wednesday, 15 April 2026 at 7 pm
About the Art of Love or a Film with 14441 Frames
Karpo Godina
1972, 10′
Hundreds of soldiers live in a barracks not far from Saramzalino village in North Macedonia, and right next to it is a village with several thousand girls. Soldiers and girls never meet.
During his military service, Karpo Aćimović Godina was given 20,000 soldiers, 60 tanks, and 20 planes to make a propaganda film for the Yugoslav army. However, his subversive approach resulted in a satirical miniature that playfully questions the ideological foundations of the working class. A versatile filmmaker and key figure of the Black Wave - who had also co-authored Želimir Žilnik’s landmark films Early Works and Black Film a few years earlier - Godina nearly ended up in prison because of this film. He even went so far as to secretly take the footage from the army to prevent it from being destroyed.
Early Works
Želimir Žilnik
1969, 87'
During the student unrest of 1968, Jugoslava and her three friends confront the petty-bourgeois routine of everyday life. Inspired by the writings of the young Karl Marx and determined to change the world, they visit villages and factories to awaken people's consciousness and encourage them in their fight for emancipation and a dignified life. There, they face primitivism and misery, but also their own limitations.
An important work of political cinematography is an allegorical depiction of the clash between political ideals and social reality. Social issues and the portrayal of figures from the margins of society have remained a constant preoccupation of Žilnik's oeuvre. Awarded the Golden Bear at the 1969 Berlinale, the film was soon banned in Yugoslavia on the grounds that it constituted a "grave violation of social and political morality". After a great success and winning the Golden Bear at the 1969 Berlinale and a short screening, the film was banned. When his next film, Freedom or Cartoons, suffered the same fate, Žilnik emigrated to Germany.
The screening will be followed by a discussion with directors Karpo Godina and Želimir Žilnik.
Tuesday, 21 April 2026 at 7 pm
Drinking water and Freedom III
Rajko Grlić
1999, 14'
In 1973, Rajko Grlić shot a one-minute documentary film Drinking Water and Freedom, which was banned from public screening by The Film Review Commission of the Socialist Republic of Croatia. In 1986, he made a sequel to that film, Drinking Water and Freedom II. He talks about the fate of the first installment and at the same time shows what happened to the spring and the stone table that caused the film’s ban. In 1998, Drinking water and Freedom III was filmed, a continuation of the previous two films and a continuation of the story about water, freedom and the spring.
Following the fate of a fountain and one memorial plaque over a period of 26 years, Grlić creates an effective commentary on political systems, withered values and the dryness of dominant ideologies.
Virgina
Srđan Karanović
1991, 101'
In the backwoods of the Knin region, families without male offspring were considered cursed and doomed to disappear. To avoid the curse, one of the female children would often be raised as a male. Families with a virgin would hide the truth about the child's true gender as the most precious secret. Thus, Timotije, the head of his family, decided that his youngest daughter would become a virgin, naming her Stevan. The girl grows up as a boy, and from her earliest childhood she is forced to annihilate anything feminine in her. However, on the threshold of girlhood, she falls in love with a young man...
The drama, set at the end of the 19th century, was inspired by a newspaper article about a woman from Albania who spent 25 years as a man. Karanović, who also wrote the screenplay for the film, once said: “As for the idea of this film, it seemed to me that the story of a girl who is forced to be a man, but wants to be herself, is actually a story about what we always want and strive for in our lives and maturation: that our environment let us be who we are, and not what it would like us to be.”
Premiered at Mostra, Virgina is considered the last Yugoslav film, and was shot on authentic locations around Knin. In the complex and long-term production process, the role of Croatian co-producer was taken over by Rajko Grlić, and the film was completed at the dawn of the war, which is why it was not distributed in Croatia. Marta Keler was awarded the European Film Award for her title role.
The screening will be followed by a discussion with Rajko Grlić.
Monday, 27 April at 7 pm
Plastic Jesus
Lazar Stojanović
1971, 74'
Tom, an underground filmmaker and performer from Zagreb, makes a living in Belgrade, engaging in short-term relationships with various women. After being dumped by a crazy American girl who sang the song Plastic Jesus, he gets involved in a relationship with a woman whose husband lives abroad. At the same time, student demonstrations are taking place in Belgrade, demanding loyalty to the original communist ideals and criticizing the so-called red bourgeoisie - the ruling elite that has become alienated from the working class whose interests it supposedly represents.
Filmed as director Lazar Stojanović's graduation thesis at the Belgrade Dramatic Academy, Plastic Jesus is the most controversial, deeply anarchic work of Yugoslav cinema. Banned even before its first public screening, the film was deemed blasphemous due to its treatment of Marshal Tito - and Stojanović was the first Yugoslav filmmaker to be convicted for his film work. His mentor Aleksandar Petrović was dismissed from the Belgrade Academy, leading him to emigrate, and Tomislav Gotovac, who plays the lead role in the film, was also hit by the sanctions - he only managed to complete his studies a few years later. There are several interpretations of the message of Stojanović's film - from suspicions of advocating anti-Marxism, the alleged equating of fascism and communism, to the fact that the film primarily presents a nihilistic critique of ideological mythology and propaganda.
Thursday, 30 April 2026 at 7 pm
The Role of My Family in the Revolution
Bahrudin Bato Čengić
1971, 86'
After WW2, a group of partisans comes to a bourgeois family in order to teach them singing and declamation of new songs. The family soon forgets their old customs and principles.Based on the NIN-awarded novel of the same name by Boro Ćosić, the film satirically depicts post-war ecstasies and utopias. After its premiere at the Pula Film Festival in 1971, further screenings of the film were banned, and Tito reportedly refused to watch it.
According to the Lexicon of Yugoslav Mythology, “critics of Čengić’s film were outraged by its portrayal of the partisans as a sexually insatiable ‘red horde,’ while the scene deemed most deserving of censorship featured a cake decorated with a marzipan likeness of Stalin’s head, served to chants of ‘Eat Stalin’s brain!’”
In addition to Čengić, Ćosić’s text was also adapted into a screenplay by Branko Vučićević, a key figure of auteur cinema and the Black Wave. Known for his essays, criticism, and screenwriting, he co-wrote scripts for landmark films such as Žilnik’s Early Works and Makavejev’s Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator.
The Cinema Censorship programme is curated and hosted by Jelena Pašić, film critic and art historian.
