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EpicenterAuthor: Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University
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Rare Films from Socialist Yugoslavia (with Damir Kapidžić, Denisa Sarajlic, and Nace Zavrl)
Episode 16
Tuesday, 22 October, 2024
One room. One locked-down camera. One roll of film. A group of famous directors from the 1960s took the challenge: they would make a short film with these parameters plus one more—their dialogue must include the sentence “I Miss Sonia Henie.” The result was a bawdy, ludicrous compilation that became an international classic. It’s featured in a new film retrospective called The Yugoslav Junction: Internationalism in the SFRY: 1958–1988. The Weatherhead Center is cosponsoring this program of short and long films from socialist Yugoslavia, which takes place at the Harvard Film Archive beginning November 9. Today we’re talking to the curator of the series along with two Weatherhead fellows from Bosnia and Herzegovina who will set up the political and cultural background for these rare films, and they’ll discuss three of them— one each from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.The curator of the series Nace Zavrl shares his inspiration for putting together the fifty-film retrospective. In fact, one of the original founders of the Harvard Film Archive was Yugoslavian, and Zavrl suspected there might be a treasure trove of socialist-era films in the catalog. He was right.Damir Kapidžić, political scientist at the University of Sarajevo, notes that an explosion of filmmaking occurred after Stalin and Tito split in their ideologies, and Yugoslavia needed to present itself as a third kind of system, neither socialist nor Western.Denisa Sarajlic, former Deputy Minister of Civil Affairs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has studied the power of narratives from the socialist period to the present. She tackles the plots of the movies under discussion and describes the portrayal of women and the social tensions related to Western influences, among other fascinating insights.Guests:Damir Kapidžić, 2023–2024 Fulbright Visiting Scholar, Weatherhead Scholars Program. Associate Professor of Comparative Politics, University of Sarajevo.Denisa Sarajlic, Fellow, Weatherhead Scholars Program (spring 2025). Director, SKRIPTA. Nace Zavrl, PhD Candidate, Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, Harvard University. Host:Jessica Barnard, Program Manager for the Weatherhead Research Clusters on Migration and on Global HistoryRelated LinksThe Yugoslav Junction: Film and Internationalism in the SFRY, 1957–1988Harvard Film ArchiveNace Zavrl’s personal websiteDamir Kapidžić’s personal websiteIlliberal Politics in Southeast Europe: How Ruling Elites Undermine Democracy, edited by Damir Kapidžić, Věra Stojarová (Routledge, 2022)“Inclusive topic selection: reflections on Mostar’s first citizens’ assembly” by Damir Kapidžić and Yves Dejaeghere (Deliberative Democracy Digest, February 15, 2024)“After Yugoslavia” by Nace Zavrl (Senses of Cinema, October 2022)“The patchwork method: on David Redmon and Ashley Sabin” by Nace Zavrl (Visual Studies, Volume 39, May 2024)“Megaphone, Molotov, Moviola: 1968 and Global Cinema / Celluloid Revolt” by Nace Zavrl (NECSUS, June 14, 2020)“High art cinema: The artist’s feature film” by Nace Zavrl (Moving Image Review & Art Journal, Volume 7, Issue 1, Apr 2018)“Counter-operation: Harun Farocki Against the Network” by Nace Zavrl (Afterimage, Volume 45, Issue 1, July/August 2017)Music:“Balkan Qoulou” by Watcha Clan. Source: Free Music Archive (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US) This episode was produced, edited, and mixed by Michelle Nicholasen, Editor and Content Producer at the Weatherhead Center.Follow the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs:Weatherhead Center WebsiteEpicenter WebsiteTwitterFacebookSimplecastYouTubeVimeo
