Film Screenings / Programs / Series
AVANT-GARDE CINEMA FROM EX-YUGOSLAVIA, 1950s-80s
March 6 – March 8
Despite Anthology’s roots in the international underground/avant-garde film movements of the 1950s-60s – and our ongoing institutional commitment to preserving, screening, and promoting the experimental films of that period and beyond – a critically important realm of avant-garde cinema has been largely neglected in the U.S. over the years, even within our halls: the wave of films that emerged in the countries of ex-Yugoslavia. While a handful of filmmakers have penetrated the consciousness of American scholars and cineastes – Dušan Makavejev above all, though Karpo Godina and Želimir Žilnik have begun to make ripples as well – these artists are merely the tip of the iceberg, representing an experimental film movement of extraordinary richness, inventiveness, and uncompromising political engagement.
To begin to redress the invisibility of these films here in the U.S., as well as to call attention to some of the important institutions and organizations that are heroically working (in the face of daunting obstacles) to preserve the avant-garde cinema of ex-Yugoslavia, we’ve invited the Slovenian Cinematheque, the Croatian Film Association, and the Academic Film Center, Belgrade, to curate programs showcasing films from their collections. The resulting series expands upon a groundbreaking program curated for Anthology in 2012 by scholar and writer Pavle Levi, and hopefully itself represents a preview of things to come. Though even these four programs represent only the most selective of surveys of the Slovenian, Croatian, and Serbian avant-garde movements, the films included here are guaranteed to transform your conception of 20th-century experimental cinema.
Very special thanks to Jurij Meden (Slovenian Cinematheque & George Eastman House), Diana Nenadić (Croatian Film Association), and Miodrag Miša Milošević (Academic Film Center, Student City Cultural Center, Belgrade).
Jurij Meden, the curator of Program 1, will be here in person to present the screening of Slovenian work on Fri, Mar 6!
