Cinema
Early Works
Рани радови
Želimir Žilnik · 1969
Synopsis
Belgrade, after the student demonstrations of June 1968. Three young men and a young woman named Jugoslava decide to move from Marx's early writings to action: they leave the city for the villages and factories, where they intend to awaken the consciousness of peasants and workers. On the spot, they meet with poverty, filth and indifference, and also discover their own limits, weaknesses and jealousies.
Context
The screenplay is by the director and Branko Vučićević, and the credits attribute the additional dialogue to Marx and Engels. The title takes that of an anthology of the early texts of Marx and Engels published in Yugoslavia in 1953. The censors authorised its release on 8 March 1969; a trial for disturbing Yugoslav public opinion opened on 23 June, and the film remained banned until 1982. An article by Vladimir Jovičić in the daily Borba in August 1969 coined against it the expression black wave, and the official counter-offensive against this cinema started from there.
Who it is for
Under an hour and a half, in subtitled Serbo-Croatian, with a free construction and dialogue full of quotations. It is worth knowing what the Belgrade students were demanding in June 1968.
Prizes and reception
Golden Bear in Berlin and four prizes at the Pula festival in 1969; one of the hundred Serbian films declared cultural property of great importance.