Croatian Cinema at Walter Reade Theatre in New York

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Beyond Boundaries: The Emergence of Croatian Cinema programme is currently taking place in the Walter Reade Theatre in New York. It started on October 26th and will last until November 14th.

The program features 11 contemporary films, a program of shorts from the influential ‘Zagreb school of animation’ and 13 favourites from the golden age of Yugoslav cinema—a politically non-conformist period of filmmaking in the 1960s and ‘70s that incorporated many of European cinema’s most progressive techniques while advancing several of its own, especially through animation.

Three directors will be coming to the Walter Reade Theater for the series, Krsto Papic, has been making films for nearly half a century, building his reputation on provocative political dramas and comedies including Handcuffs (1970), the first Croatian horror film Izbavitelj (1976) and the series feature A Village Performance of Hamlet (1974) — a jet-black satire on Yugoslavia’s post-war government starring Rade Serbedzija (The Saint, Snatch) and nominated for a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

The other attendees include Dejan Sorak, who graduated from the Academy of Dramatic Art in 1978 and has worked in television, theater and radio drama while directing seven feature films, including the highly acclaimed Two Players from the Bench (2005), a buddy movie that revolves around the criminal war tribunals in The Hauge.

Ognjen Svilicic, a 1997 graduate of the Academy of Dramatic Art, has since become one of Croatia’s most active directors and screenwriters; his films Sorry for Kung Fu (2004) and the father-son story Armin (2007), which is featured in the series, won awards at several international film festivals. Armin is the Croatian nominee for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award®.

Both Sorak and Svilicic represent a bold new generation of filmmakers whose self-critical outlook, balanced by a penchant and talent for black comedy, revived a national film industry that had almost become extinct. This contemporary period began in the mid-1990s when, despite economic struggles and government censure, a film movement calling itself Young Croatian Film showcased a body of young directors, cameramen, editors and actors, mostly educated at the Zagreb Academy of the Performing Arts.

Vinko Bresan struck the loudest chord with How the War Started on My Island (1996), a highlight of Beyond Boundaries and a darkly comic look at Croatia’s war for independence. The film attracted more than 300,000 people to the nation’s theaters while reigniting national and international respect for the country’s filmmaking.

Since then, thanks to renewed support for film production that arrived as Franjo Tudman’s regime came to an end, Croatian cinema has flourished. It is frequently represented at international film festivals, winning several awards, while Croatia’s national festival held at Pula has opened its doors to European competition.

Beyond Boundaries includes five Grand Golden Arena (best film) award winners from Pula: How the War Started on My Island, Fine Dead Girls (2002), Here (2003), What Iva Recorded on October 21, 2003 (2005) and All for Free (2006). Visually and technically sophisticated, these films often turn seemingly lighthearted situations into meaningful debates on the lingering effects of war and partisan conflict on society.

“Where Croatia has succeeded most,” wrote film scholar Jurica Pavicic in the Central Europe Review in 2000, “is not with the ‘ordinary feature film,’ as during the four post-World War II decades, but rather, as a strong source of experimental and alternative cinema.”

Yet, such a tremendous and sudden overflow of talent could not be possible without a strong national tradition. Beyond Boundaries offers audiences the chance to compare Croatia’s current cinema with 13 titles from the 1950s and ‘60s, a period often referred to as the golden age of Yugoslav cinema.

In Croatia, the relative leniency of Tito’s government towards filmmakers, the outpouring of cultural expression that followed the death of Stalin in 1953 and the influence of new filmmaking styles came together to create an inventive, socially conscious cinema influenced by the country’s traditions in folk art and experiences in partisan struggle.

Classics of the era include such series films as Nikola Tanhofer’s political allegory built around an impending roadway collision H-8 (1958), Branko Bauer’s attack on the local consolidation of workers unions in Face to Face (1963), Ante Babaja’s marvelous blend of technology and artistic tradition in The Birch Tree (1967), Lordan Zefranovic’s courageous recreation of Croatia’s wartime experience Occupation in 26 Pictures (1978) and Branko Belan’s influential though deeply cynical Koncert (1954), in which a piano and the stories of its various players codify the social and political changes in the first half of the 20th century.

Finally, Light Drawings, a program of 11 animated shorts curated by Croatian film scholar Mato Kukuljica, pays tribute to the highly-influential “Zagreb school of animation.” This group of Croatian animators came to define the cutting edge of international animation while their novel approaches continue to influence film artists today. The most famous member, Vatroslav Mimica — who would go on to direct several live-action features including Monday or Tuesday (1966) — is represented in Light Drawings by The Loner (1958) and The Inspector is Back! (1959). Also included are two titles by “father of Croatian animated film” Dusan Vukotic: Concerto for a Sub-machine Gun (1958) and the 1961 short The Substitute, which won the Academy Award® for Best Short Subject Cartoon. Three other Zagreb animations received Oscar® nominations, including Zdenko Gasparovic’s Satiemania (1978). “An extraordinary crossroads between east and west, north and south, Croatia was for many years the entry point for new waves and modes of filmmaking while part of the former Yugoslavia,” says Richard Peña, program director at the Film Society. “Today, Croatia’s long-standing tradition of innovation has helped a vibrant, critical cinema emerge, making Croatian films popular not only at home but increasingly with international audiences.” The event is organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic Croatia, Film Society of Lincoln Centre and Consulate General of the Republic of Croatia New York.