Innocence Unprotected: Reframing the World through Yugoslav Cinema
By Mina Radovic
Introductions by Vlastimir Sudar and Mina Radovic
Liberating Cinema is honoured to launch The Liberating Cinema Film Series 2024, inviting you to join our retrospective 1-29 February 2024 at the Close Up Film Centre in London.
Innocence Unprotected: Reframing the World through Yugoslav Cinema is a series of screenings of Yugoslav films of the 1960s that change how we see the world, reframing our perception of rejection, community, creation, and love.
We would like to thank our partners The Serbian Council of Great Britain (Serbian Month 2024), and Avala Film Way and Delta Video, Belgrade for generously providing the films included in this programme. All images are courtesy of Delta Video, Belgrade.
Our Film Series is educational and free of charge, with the aim of facilitating dialogue between academia, archives, and the film industry and engaging them on a wide range of cinematic works and topics with our audiences across the UK and internationally.
W1 (1st February) – And Love Has Vanished (Aleksandar Petrović, 1961)
Book your visit: https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/film_programmes/2024/innocence-unprotected/and-love-has-vanished/
Introduced by Vlastimir Sudar (Kingston, University of London)
Aleksandar Petrović’s first feature And Love Has Vanished follows Mirko and Jovana who accidentally meet each other and fall in love. In the spirit of the original title, Dvoje is neither a conventional romance nor a renegade tale but a beautiful and breath-taking work about the challenges of the world, and the true meaning of love. Nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, the film features Beba Lončar in one of her first roles and the brilliant character actor Miha Baloh, whose encounter is only bolstered by the poetic cinematography of Ivan Marinček. And Love Has Vanished became an instant classic on its release, announcing Petrović’s bold vision and launching the New Yugoslav Film.
W2 (17th February) – Do Not Mention the Cause of Death (Jovan Živanović, 1968)
Book your visit: https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/film_programmes/2024/innocence-unprotected/do-not-mention-the-cause-of-death/
Introduced by Mina Radovic
One of the main films targeted in critic Vladimir Jovičić’s reproach of what he called “the black wave in our cinema”, Do Not Mention the Cause of Death is a portrait of a community in a Serbian village at the onset of the Second World War. A dyer wishes to provide black paint to everyone who loses a family member but as his loved ones and neighbours become suspect and the death toll grows, his supply begins to run dry.
Through its use of colour, texture, and rhythm Do Not Mention the Cause of Death invites viewers to experience the nature of life threatened by oblivion. Combining in a rare turn socio-political critique and expression of faith the film is an anomaly of cinema and yet remains essential viewing, proof of the vitality of the Yugoslav Black Wave.
W3 (24th February) – Innocence Unprotected (Dušan Makavejev, 1968)
Book your visit: https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/film_programmes/2024/innocence-unprotected/innocence-unprotected/
In 1943 acrobat Dragoljub Aleksić directed, wrote, shot, and starred in “the first Serbian talkie” and in 1968 Dušan Makavejev reconstructed his journey in a film bearing the same title. Blending free-form documentary and experimental filmmaking, Makavejev uses clips from Aleksić’s previously unseen film, present-day interviews with the acrobat and co-stars and archival footage of his larger-than-life ventures – as well as the war and post-war reconstruction of Belgrade – to create a mosaic of an artist and his unlikely role in the history of a country.
Winner of the Silver Bear Award of the Jury and FIPRESCI Prize at the Berlinale, Innocence Unprotected is one of Makavejev’s most original works and his penultimate film made in Yugoslavia.
W4 (29th February) – Crows (Gordan Mihić, Ljubiša Kozomara, 1969)
Book your visit: https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/film_programmes/2024/innocence-unprotected/crows/
Responsible for “writing” the Black Wave, master screenwriters Gordan Mihić and Ljubiša Kozomara directed only one feature film: Crows. Đuka is an ageing boxer struggling to make ends meet and, as he meets fellows as defeated as him, they decide to form a gang and begin to steal, cheat, and even kill for money. As the gang wanders through streets and crevices of rural towns, they begin to resemble the feathered friends of the film’s title.
Led by Slobodan Perović in a marvellous performance and accompanied by a remarkable minimalist score by Zoran Hristić, Crows renders the fate of people on the margins of society and gives a distinctive voice to the rejected, despised, and dispossessed.
