director:		Dušan Makavejev
screenplay:		Dušan Makavejev
cinematography:		Aleksandar Petković, Vojislav Lukić
editing:		Marko Babac
music:		Zoran Simjanović
cast:		Dragan Ivkov, Anja Baškovac
production:		Kino Klub Beograd
sales:		Dušan Makavejev
language:		no dialogues
colouration:		b&w

The drifter Antoni wanders the city entertaining kids and encounters a clothing store with a mannequin on display. He performs for the figure and notices it turns into a woman, only to have the storefront glass foil the encounter. A tale of the power of imagination and disillusionment with reality, this, one of Makavejev’s first films, was shot in an amateur Belgrade film club.

 

director:		Dušan Makavejev
screenplay:		Vasko Popa
cinematography:		Oktavijan Miletić
editing:		Kleopatra Harisijades
music:		Dušan Radić
production:		Zastava Film
sales:		Zagreb Film
source of print:		Austrian Film Museum
language:		Serbian
colouration:		colour

Beekeeper’s Scrapbook is the first in a series of Makavejev’s 1958 shorts about folk art with scripts penned by Vasko Popy. Shot at Ljubljana’s Ethnographic Museum, it shows amazing polychrome-covered beehives from the 18^th and 19^th centuries, and takes viewers on a ride through the rich iconography, with absorbing and sometimes even humorous commentary.

director:		Dušan Makavejev
screenplay:		Vasko Popa
cinematography:		Oktavijan Miletić
editing:		Lida Braniš
music:		Dušan Radić
production:		Zagreb Film
sales:		Zagreb Film
source of print:		Austrian Film Museum
language:		Serbian
colouration:		colour

For ages, women have woven carpets – that is the starting point of this ethnographically leaning film by Makavejev. Colors Are Dreaming show the patterns as they appear on kilims – their textures and living hues, while the interwoven shots produce abstract images of geometric, plant and animal motifs infused with the colors of dreams.

director:		Dušan Makavejev
screenplay:		Vasko Popa
cinematography:		Oktavijan Miletić
editing:		Lida Braniš
music:		Dušan Radić
production:		Zastava Film
sales:		Zagreb Film
source of print:		Austrian Film Museum
language:		Serbian
colouration:		colour

This nine-minute film presents Serbian folk funeral art, headstones adorned with polychrome relief sculptures that meld Christian icons with motifs of daily life. The editing keeps rhythm to the soundtrack, where images of saints are interspersed with close-ups of grave slithering snails. The film charmed John Grierson, who included it in his The Wonderful World television program.

director:		Dušan Makavejev
screenplay:		Dušan Makavejev
cinematography:		Vojislav Lukić
editing:		Marko Babac
music:		Zoran Simjanović
cast:		Mirjana Vacić
production:		Kino Klub Beograd
sales:		Dušan Makavejev
language:		no dialogues
colouration:		b&w

A young woman tries to make love to a park statue, but despite her passionate efforts, the monument remains cold and heartless. Don’t Believe in Monuments is an early short, where Makavejev subtly ridicules Yugoslav state-sponsored monument and history worship.

director:		Dušan Makavejev
screenplay:		Vlada Bulatović-Vib
cinematography:		Vladeta Lukić
editing:		Marko Babac
cast:		Mija Aleksić
production:		Zagreb Film
sales:		Dušan Makavejev
source of print:		FARS
language:		Serbian
colouration:		b&w

In a parody of Snow White told by Yugoslav actor Mija Aleksić, this adaptation of a story by Vlad Bulatovic melds a surreal feel with communist rhetoric to satirize bureaucratic gibberish.

director:		Dušan Makavejev
screenplay:		Dušan Makavejev
cinematography:		Dušan Makavejev
producer:		Jure Ruljancić
production:		Zagreb Film
sales:		Zagreb Film
source of print:		Jugoslovenska Kinoteka
language:		Serbian
colouration:		b&w

In What Is a Workers’ Council? Makavejev clearly relishes filming a boy and girl visiting a chocolate factory, where they learn the secrets of production and labor organization and are given more latitude than adults – e.g. to yawn during a board meeting.

director:		Dušan Makavejev
screenplay:		Dušan Makavejev
cinematography:		Marko Babac
editing:		Marko Babac
cast:		Jovan Ćirilov, Mila Radosavljević
production:		Kino Klub Beograd
sales:		Dušan Makavejev
language:		no dialogues
colouration:		b&w

Inspired by the 1928 experimental film by Robert Florey and Slavko Vorkapich, The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra, this amateur short is the story of a man who spends his entire life under the thumb of anonymous bureaucrats. The titular seal adorns everything in life, from birth to death, in a criticism of bureaucracy and power over the individual, in a film that makes stylistic references to silent cinema.

Information about director

Dušan Makavejev

Director, screenwriter and leading exponent of the ‘novi film’ new wave of Balkan cinema, Dušan Makavejev was born in Belgrade in the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1932. He first studied psychology at the University of Belgrade, before moving on to film direction studies at the Academy of Theatre, Film, Radio and Television. As a student, in the 1950s, Makavejev had an intense interest in film criticism – very much like his distant colleagues who would form the core of the French New Wave movement. He became active within the ‘Beograd’ film club and worked on theater productions, both as an actor and director. He began making his own short films in 1953, and quickly developed an interest in documentary filmmaking, which greatly influenced his style and technique. His feature debut, as director and writer, Man Is Not a Bird (1965) already showed his unconventional and original vision. His fourth film WR – Mysteries of the Organism (1971) caused great controversy, put Makavejev on the Yugoslav government’ list of suspect artists, and went on to become a cult classic. Following its release, Makavejev emigrated to France. Thereafter he worked abroad for two decades, including in the United States, where he was a guest of Francis Ford Coppola. He first returned to his homeland at the end of the 1980s, and today shares his time between Belgrade and Paris. His films have screened at all the major festivals, including Cannes and Berlinale, and he has served on festival juries in Berlin (1970) and Venice (2004). In 1998, he received the Mostra Special Award at the São Paulo IFF.

Filmpography

1953 Jatagan mala (doc., short)

1955 Pieczęć / Pečat / The Seal (short)

1957 Rozbite lustro Antoniego / Antonijevo razbijeno ogledalo / Anthony’s Broken Mirror (short)

1958 Nie wierzcie w pomniki / Spomenicima ne treba verovati / Don’t Believe in Monuments (short)

1958 Album pszczelarza / Slikovnica pčelara / Beekeeper’s Scrapbook (doc., short)

1958 Śniące kolory / Boje sanjaju / Colors Are Dreaming (doc., short)

1958 Przeklęte święto / Prokleti praznik / Damned Holiday (doc., short)

1959 Co to jest rada zakładowa? / Što je radnički savjet? / What Is a Workers’ Council? (short)

1961 Edukacyjna bajka / Pedagoška bajka / Educational Fairy Tale (short)

1961 Ene, due, rabe / Eci, pec, pec / One Potato, Two Potato (short)

1961 Uśmiech ’61 / Osmjeh ’61 / Smile ’61 (short)

1962 Miss Piękności ’62 / Ljepotica ’62 / Miss Beauty ’62 (doc., short)

1962 Film o książce / Film o knjizi A.B.C. / Film About a Book (short)

1962 Pochód / Parada / Parade (doc., short)

1962 Precz z płotami / Dole plotovi / Down with the Fences (short)

1964 Nowe zwierzę domowe / Nova domača životinja / New Domestic Animal (doc., short)

1964 Nowa zabawka / Nova igračka / New Toy (short)

1965 Człowiek nie jest ptakiem / Čovek nije tica / Man Is Not a Bird

1967 Miłosny przypadek, czyli tragedia telefonistki / Ljubavni slučaj ili tragedija službenice P.T.T. / Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator

1968 Bezbronna niewinność / Nevinost bez zaštite / Innocence Unprotected (doc.)

1971 Tęsknię za Sonją Henie / Nedostaje mi Sonja Henie / I Miss Sonia Henie (short)

1971 WR – tajemnice organizmu / W.R. – Misterije organizma / WR: Mysteries of the Organism

1974 Sweet Movie

1974 Politfuck (as Sam Rotterdam, segment in Wet Dreams)

1981 Czarnogóra, czyli perły i wieprze / Montenegro / Montenegro – Or Pigs and Pearls

1985 Coca-Cola Kid / The Coca-Cola Kid

1988 Manifest / Manifesto

1993 Goryle kąpią się w południe / Gorila se kupa u podne / Gorilla Bathes at Noon

1994 Dziura w duszy / Rupa u duši / A Hole in the Soul (doc.)

1995 Duńskie dziewczyny pokazują wszystko / Danske piger viser alt / Danish Girls Show Everything (co-dir.)

Prepared by: Marta Miś