Multiple Viewpoints to Balkan Film Culture

In 2014, the Midnight Sun Film Festival presents a selection of films highlighting the rich and diverse cultural history of the Balkan area. The “Balkan Special” includes a selection of short films from the former Yugoslavia, a few handpicked Yugoslav classics and recent feature-length films of Serbian, Bosnian and international production. Featuring both fictional and documentary films, the series also introduces us to the artistic and industrial aspects of Balkan film culture. The films will be presented by the German film experts Lars Henrik Gass and Olaf Möller and the Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski.

The Yugoslav Years series, programmed originally for the 56th International Short
Film Festival Oberhausen, includes six short films from the SFR Yugoslavia at the turn of the 1970’s. Selected from Oberhausen’s vast film archive, these films represent the many styles and aspects of the long vanished nation’s film culture: the stunningly poetic style of the Sarajevo school of documentary cinema; the aggressive and outspoken tendencies of Serbian and Slovenian Black Wave; and application of the politique des auteurs to Croatian cinema. The series will be presented by Oberhausen festival director Lars Henrik Gass.

The feature selection spans over five decades. Circles (Krugovi, 2013) by Srdan Golubovic is a Serbian film telling the story of a Serbian soldier who risked his life to protect a Muslim civilian during the war in Bosnia in 1993. Twelve years later, the ripples of the event still affect lives of all its participants and their families – in Bosnia, in Serbia and in Germany. Circles was the Serbian nomination for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and it was awarded the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Sarajevo-born Emil Kusturica’s film When Father Was Away on Business (Otac na službenom putu, 1985) takes place in the early 1950s. Told from the viewpoint of a 6-year-old boy, the film tells of the political imprisonment of his father, an employee for the labor ministry. The film details the tribulations of a fatherless family struggling to cope with the financial deprivations of Communism. When Father Was Away on Business brought the director Emil Kusturica the Cannes Film Festival Golden Palm award.

W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (W.R. - Misterije organizma, 1971) is a cinematic essay by Serbian director Dušan Makavejev. The film explores communist politics, sexual liberation and the work of pioneering sexologist Wilhelm Reich. Though the film was never released in Makavejev's native Yugoslavia, W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism firmly established the iconoclastic filmmaker's international reputation.

Adding a wider angle to the Balkan theme, the Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski’s documentary Serbian Epics (1992) provides a universal exploration of nationalist and ethnocentric mentalities. As a specimen of visual anthropology, Pawlikowski’s film relies on powerful images rather than verbal commentary, presenting richly detailed scenes of Serbian culture, religion and conflict. The film is introduced by the director himself.

This special programme has been made possible in part thanks to cooperation with the European Commission. The Commission is present at the Midnight Sun Film Festival as part of its information campaign on enlargement of the European Union (EU).

Croatia became the EU’s 28th Member State on 1 July 2013.

Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland (negotiations with Iceland have been put on hold following the decision of the Icelandic government), the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo*, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey are candidate countries or potential candidates for EU membership. Some of them are already in the negotiation process or waiting to start, while others have been promised the prospect of membership when they are ready.

For more information on EU enlargement: http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/

* This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.