3rd Subversive Film Festival in Zagreb

Pavle Levi of Stanford University delivered a lecture entitled “Machines and Machinations: Towards a Politics of the Kino-Apparatus” on the final night of the theoretical component of the festival.  He dealt with the political underpinnings of certain obscure cinematic relics as well as the political content of new video documentaries produced in the context of youth workshops.  Complex and interesting, hopefully this presentation will be organized into a written study of some sorts.

This presentation gave way to the third in the three-part roundtable “Yugoslav Film Affair,” this one moderated by Miki Stojanovic of Film Center Serbia and again including Italian critic Sergio Grmek Germani, the filmmakers Lazar Stojanovic, Veljko Bulajic, Slobodan Sijan, Djordje Kadijevic, Krsto Papic and professors Pavle Levi and Hrvoje Turkovic.  The discussion continued on Yugoslav “Black Wave” films and again the conversation was passionate and provocative.

One of the central question discussed was “What is a state director?”  As Kadijevic succinctly put it, he happened to be sitting between two men who represented the opposite poles: Bulajic as a state-approved director who worked on large budget films, Stojanovic as the anarchic outsider who worked in low-budget production.  Continuing on with the theme of politics from Levi’s presentation, the panelists addressed the ramifications of being a “state-approved” director in Socialist Yugoslavia and what the general climate was like in the 60s and 70s at that time: turbulent, to say the least, as immense freedoms won quickly gave way to new repressions and which ultimately ended with the disintegration of Yugoslavia itself.

Needless to say, this was such a huge topic that it warranted a three-part panel, which was still not enough to address the complex political and cinematic history of Yugoslavia.   This is why it was great news to hear rumors of a “Socialism, Part 2″ focus as next year’s festival.  If so, Zagreb, Croatia is undoubtedly the place to be in 2011 for anyone with a serious interest in the history of Yugoslav cinema.