Djangarchi
Djangarchi is a film about Oleg Mankuev, one of four throat singers, the Djangarchi, from Kalmikija. Kalmikija is an autonomous republic of the Russian Federation and the only Buddhist country in Europe. Djangar is an epic poem that has been sung since ancient times. This poem is the carrier of national pride and identity of the people of Kalmikija throughout generations. Djangarchi has also been called ‘the carrier of eternity‘. Conceived as an exciting road movie documentary, the film follows Oleg's journey from Kalmikija to Croatia, in search of his own identity and new musician friends. By singing this old epic poem, Oleg is about to leave his motherland Kalmikija and is about to go to Rijeka (Croatia) to cooperate with Damir Martinovic, the frontman and the producer of Let 3, a famous and surely the most eccentric Croatian band.
Hunting Bears
The idea of the film is to follow several artists who are involved in graffiti art, all around the world (US, UK, France) to show their aims and hopes, their problems, obstacles they face when doing their art, as sometimes they might even end up in jail. Through their explanations of how the art works, we would like to form some sort of visual lexicon of the art that is very present but still very marginalized.
Beyond the Mountains
A documentary film about the everyday life of refugees in Georgia, who escaped from the war in Grozny. The sphere of the story is Pankisi Gorge in Georgia, the neighbouring country of Chechnya, where hundreds of Chechen refugees run for shelter. There will be one main protagonist - Musa, a singer who tries to pass on the knowledge of the Chechen music; the everyday life of Musa’s family will be the central narration of the film. The central moment in the film is to describe the life of the children who live here, and the film narration will incorporate their monologues as they recall scenes from the past or speak about their future plans and dreams. The film’s structure will be small vignettes, small episodes of the children’s lives in Duisi primary school. At the beginning of each episode their name will be shown, which they will write with white chalk on a blackboard and introduce themselves. They tell us in their own way of their pain, joy and dreams...
Funeral & Wedding Orchestra
This is a story of life and death told through the language of music. Fifteen musicians of the funeral orchestra in Kavadarci now struggle to survive. Once they played at about seventy funerals a year, but since a chapel was built next to the cemetery entrance, almost no one orders music for funerals. The families do not wish to pay for a hundred meters of music, i.e. the distance from the chapel to the graves, since people in town will hardly hear it. So the musicians now try to earn some money by playing at weddings and similar festivities, but very few would hire the funeral orchestra to play at a wedding.
One Dying Star
Three turbulent decades of the 20th century are reflected through science-fiction films made in socialist Yugoslavia. Told chronologically through the 60s, 70s, and 80s, the story follows the clash of dreams and reality in a country that no longer exists. Each decade mirrors both the evolution of Yugoslav sci-fi and the rise and fall of the state that created it. When the nation was optimistic, films were bleak; when it collapsed, they sought hope. The last Yugoslav sci-fi—about friendship between an alien and a girl—symbolized a unity the real world was losing.
Prologue
Archive footage and animation evoke early visions of space travel and imagined planets, lit by a red star.
“The endless canopy is both cradle and deathbed to the worlds that keep being born and die…”
1960s – Science and Progress
As the first man enters space, Yugoslavia forges its own socialist path, leading the Non-Aligned Movement. Optimism fills the air, yet sci-fi warns of nuclear peril and the fragility of peace.
1970s – Political Sci-Fi
Amid rapid growth and modernisation, culture thrives but the system hardens. Sci-fi turns political, using allegory and surreal imagery to expose the cracks in utopian ideals.
1980s – Downfall of Utopia
As communism weakens and chaos looms, sci-fi retreats into children’s films. Fantasies of unity mask collective denial. As the world unites, Yugoslavia explodes—like a dying star.
Epilogue
Abandoned sets and unfinished modernist buildings—once symbols of the “future”—reveal a haunting truth: both imagined and real utopias have vanished.
Voyager 2 drifts toward Neptune, passing a fading red star.
“The universe has always been equally magnificent… an eternal existence and duration.”
Told entirely through archival materials, the film contrasts sci-fi imagery with history, reviving forgotten dreams of a society where reality and fiction often became one.
Prologue
Archive footage and animation evoke early visions of space travel and imagined planets, lit by a red star.
“The endless canopy is both cradle and deathbed to the worlds that keep being born and die…”
1960s – Science and Progress
As the first man enters space, Yugoslavia forges its own socialist path, leading the Non-Aligned Movement. Optimism fills the air, yet sci-fi warns of nuclear peril and the fragility of peace.
1970s – Political Sci-Fi
Amid rapid growth and modernisation, culture thrives but the system hardens. Sci-fi turns political, using allegory and surreal imagery to expose the cracks in utopian ideals.
1980s – Downfall of Utopia
As communism weakens and chaos looms, sci-fi retreats into children’s films. Fantasies of unity mask collective denial. As the world unites, Yugoslavia explodes—like a dying star.
Epilogue
Abandoned sets and unfinished modernist buildings—once symbols of the “future”—reveal a haunting truth: both imagined and real utopias have vanished.
Voyager 2 drifts toward Neptune, passing a fading red star.
“The universe has always been equally magnificent… an eternal existence and duration.”
Told entirely through archival materials, the film contrasts sci-fi imagery with history, reviving forgotten dreams of a society where reality and fiction often became one.