Zvonko Lepetić
The last film made in Yugoslavia, tells a story about Sarajevo during the last days of Europe, better known as the "Belle Epoque", between the years 1910-1914. A time of troubled events in the Balkans and an assassination attempt of Franz Ferdinand, which caused the beginning of the First World War.
The plot takes place in pre-war Yugoslavia, and the protagonist, interpreted by Zvonko Lepetic, is Jefto, a prison guard who lives with his family as a tenant in a basement. The plot shows how, convinced that he is destined for great things, he betrays his family, a friend and subordinates everything to his vanity.
Azra a woman major in the partisan army, who fought the Germans in World War II, returns to her home village, which she helped to liberate. Although her husband was also a high ranking officer, and their goals were united, she finds it much harder to be accepted back into village and family life.
This story about two maternal half-brothers, a Croat and a Serb. Although they never met, and both lose their loved ones in ethnic clashes, there is a bond between them. Filmed in 1988, it prophetically forsees the war that would engulf former Yugoslavia three years later.
Adventures of an idealistic old Communist whose treasured watch is stolen by a magpie but who overcomes all difficulties.
An acknowledged and proven factory worker gets fired after workers' strike.
The town of Split in the 1930s during Italian occupation. A boy torn between kid's games and sexual awakening finds more about the latter at the nearby whorehouse who works non-stop.
Trials and tribulations of a Croatian communist intellectual in the turbulent years before, during and after the Second World War.
A moving story about the residents of correctional facility, rejected by parents and environment. Going through a strict regimen of life in the home, they are constantly trying to reverse the fate in their favor. Although they were given a chance to change, their actions always return to the beginning. Constantly on the border between personal whims and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become humans, they remain as wolves who find hard to change their mood. What finally remains is a perpetual dilemma whether their fate is innate, or is it forced by the communities in which they grew up...
It is 1918, the evening of The Great War. Austro-Hungarian empire is collapsing, and all around Croatia there are outlaw deserters, fighting in forests. A city journalist decides to become a country schoolteacher, just to find some peace in that restless political situation. But, neither the village is safe from the militaristic policy of the imperial goverment.
An insight into multi-layered relations between natives and newcomers in the town of Pula following WWII and departure of Angloamerican forces.
Musicologist and professor Kosor wakes up in a hospital. He has survived a serious car accident. In a bed next to his lies the amiable economist Gajski, whose wife Melita regularly visits him. This unusually beautiful woman is the first person that Kosor sees after he gains consciousness and is completely enchanted by her. Kosor becomes obsessed by Melita’s physical beauty and her trustworthy character and begins a risky game of writing and sending her anonymous love letters…
Balkanski špijun is a 1984 Yugoslav comedy/drama. Ilija Čvorović, a former Stalinist who spent several years in a prison on Goli otok, is contacted by the police to routinely answer questions about his tenant, Petar Markov Jakovljević, a businessman, who spent twenty years living in Paris, and now has returned to Belgrade to open a tailor shop. After only several minutes, Ilija is free to go, however, he is starting to suspect that his tenant might be a spy. As the movie goes on, his paranoia increases and more people gets involved: his wife, his daughter, his brother, Jakovljevic's friends.
Tragicomic story about Communist activist who wants to bring the benefits of Communism to the inhabitants of a Serbian village after WW2.
The first soft core porn flick made in former Yugoslavia (today Croatia). It was a huge cause celebre for the participants and equally infamous for its innumerable shortcomings ranging from the lack of coherent plot-line to the most basic elements of film making. However, in time, it has gained a somewhat cult reputation. A priceless insight into an odd culture and its lax sexual mores and follies!
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.
'Malo Misto' lives its own life, but not far behind the times. Hotel manager Roko Prč strives to organise tourism, so he introduces the first nudist beach. His wife Anđa brings two of her cousins from the Dalmatian hinterland and demands Roko to hire them. One of them, a young man named Ikan, earns the attention of a beautiful Swedish tourist. From Chile to Malo Misto returned Tonči, nicknamed Servantes, of course, without any money. He fell on the back of his hardworking aunt Keka, who even without him has enough problems of her own. Servantes also experiences an unexpected romance.
Tomislav is a former Partizan who continues his struggle after the war as a dedicated member of Tito's secret police. He meets and falls in love with a ballet dancer from a bourgeois family. His love affair with the class enemy and his slow adaptation to the post-war realities could seal his doom.
After WW II many young people arrive to Zagreb, among them a young worker Sonja Kacar. She is supposed to participate in the construction of the first generator in the Rade Koncar factory. Because there aren't enough experts and materials in Yugoslavia, the factory counts on help from fellow communist countries, Czechoslovakia and Soviet Union. However, after the Inform Bureau's resolution this help is no longer available. Sonja experiences a great intimate disappointment because Stjepan, who she is in love with, supports Stalin.
Robert is a SF writer, who realizes that he can make his thoughts material. Because of that, a group of aliens arrives to Earth. Their leader is Andra, who shows affection for Robert, which does not please his girlfriend, Biba. A monster, Mumu, has arrived together with the visitors from space.
It is 1941 and the German occupying forces are taking over Yugoslavia, making a train ride to Kraljevo a dangerous game for a secret communist agent carrying important documents. Both the Germans and the police are looking for him on the train, and his safe arrival in Kraljevo seems like an impossibility. His determination to get the papers to the right people keeps him going, even through a gun battle after the train arrives - challenging him to find a way to complete his mission.
A Macedonian village has always struggled to find ways to bring water to its arid land - a struggle that may be won when a native son returns from America with the idea of setting up a watermill. Such an enterprise gets two villages in conflict over water rights, threatening to permanently turn people against each other. In the past, the territory had been occupied by the Italian armies, and a flashback shows a massacre in one village, a revelation that disaster has been a part of their history, in one way or another. No matter how he argues, the young man who advocated the watermill loses out to the builders of a dam - something that does not bode well for the low-lying village.
Zoran is a graduate student of psychology and she gets a motorcycle as a present from his father. Being an unskilled driver, he stumbles upon a girl Biba and she breaks her leg. To prevent a possible lawsuit, he visits her in the hospital. They continue to see each other, and soon fall in love. Biba is a girl from suburban shanty, while Zoran comes from a well-to-do family, and his parents refuse to accept the girl. Young couple gets married and lives temporarily in Biba's home, where they drove out Biba's brother, a petty criminal. While looking for a new apartment, the marriage breaks down. Zoran shines at his exam with thesis on "People from socially broken families", while Biba gives birth to their child in the hospital.
Set in Dubrovnik, this drama chronicles a friendship between three men, that began just before World War II. One of the men is of Italian origin, another is the wealthy heir of a shipping fortune, and the third is the son of a Jewish antique-store owner. Before the war, they are fast friends, enjoying one another's company at carnivals and at a private fencing club. However, when the war comes, the Italians and Germans move in to create the Independent State of Croatia. The Italian friend becomes a fascist and courts and marries the sister of his rich friend. Soon enough, atrocities are being committed, and anyone suspected of Jewish or Serbian parentage or anti-fascist leanings, is killed.
A young man who long ago gave over the hard work of being a composer for the easy life of a rich man's son is bamboozled into slapping together a musical production. Having borrowed right and left, and plagiarized the works of a friend, he feels cheap, very cheap. He feels even worse when the awful thing is a success.
A group of Dalmatian guest workers from Germany come to their native town on Easter holidays. They usually spend time in a local pub playing cards, drinking and yelling. Jure is the most successful and bragging among them, while Klempo is considered poorest since he didn't built the house or bought a car. Annoyed by poor cards, Klempo places a bet with Jure that he made more money than him. The loser must give everything to winner and then walk around the town naked.
This movie tells a true story about events in Zagreb in 1941. Nazis and their collaborators organized the great gathering of students on Dubrava stadium. The intention was to publicly separate Jews from them which would lead to future pogrom. The event, however, took an unexpected turn.
Before and during WW II and the German occupation of Serbia, in a village in Vojvodina, inhabitants are separated based on their nationality. Local Volksdeutschers (ethnic Germans) enlist with the Nazi occupiers. The village bum, Leksi, jumps at the opportunity to put on a uniform and parade around with a gun. Leksi gets into an argument with villagers Marko and Joca, who devise a plan to get rid of him. At the same time, Marko tries to seduce Leksi's wife, Anika.
In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the leading character observes "The play's the thing, wherein to catch the conscience of the king." In this Yugoslavian movie, a performance of Hamlet in a small village apparently catches the conscience of the whole town. The village commissar, who knows nothing of the play, insists on mounting a production of Hamlet over the objections of the village teacher, who knows the tale well. Thinking only of the prestige it will bring, the commissar plans to use local villagers in the parts. The son of a man the commissar had framed for theft gets the part of Hamlet, and the commissar plays the usurping king. During a fight scene, the boy Hamlet, manages to wrest a confession to the thefts from the town treasurer, but when he hears of his father's suicide, he promptly stabs the commissar. The commissar, bleeding, orders the post-performance dance to go on.
A story about a couple whose problems start when she takes a job as a teacher in order to financially support his education.
I. S. returns after many years to his hometown, from which he escaped after WW II, fearing that, as a civil clerk of the NDH, could suffer prosecution from the new government. He has been falsely accused to be a member of Ustasha movement.
Story about Matan, professional beggar, smuggler, and trickster, his childhood and adult adventures with his family. It is shown as retrospective, while Matan is hiding from the authorities in the mental institution.
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 man and his conscience are shown on their way to paradise as the only illusion that saves him the present civilization's hell. However, it is the same people and same events that await him there.
Dalmatia in the 1930s. Mate Pivac, a policeman and father of eight, finds out that the King himself becomes godfather to every ninth children in the country, and tries to make his wife sure that they need another child hoping for financial or any other kind of support. Eventually in the town arrives a circus troop, whose main star looks identically to Our Lady of the Angel. The attractive lady arouses male fantasies, so local women ask from Mate to make her leave the town by force. The trouble is that Mate himself is not immune to her beauty.
An ex-prostitute, now a washerwoman, asks for a pension for her previous "employment", which socialism, with its human principles, does not disapprove. To realize her right, she needs two witnesses, and she has many more. But none of them will testify. A whole society shows its selfishness, false morality, prejudice. She dies without realizing her great wish.
