Mila Turajlic is a documentary filmmaker born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
Her most recent film The Other Side of Everything premiered at the Toronto IFF in 2017, and went on to win 32 awards including the prestigious IDFA Award for Best Documentary Film. It was a New York Times Critics' Pick, and was named one of the best films of 2018 by TheNew Yorker's Richard Brody. The film was HBO Europe’s first co-production with Serbia, and had a record-breaking theatrical release in Serbia. Mila's debut documentary film Cinema Komunisto, premiered at IDFA and the Tribeca Film Festival, and went on to win 16 awards including the Gold Hugo at the Chicago Int’l Film Festival in 2011, and the FOCAL Award for Creative Use of Archival Footage. Theatrically released in France, UK, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia, "Cinema Komunisto" was broadcast across Europe. She is currently in post-production on the documentary diptych Scenes from the Labudović Reels: Non-Aligned and Ciné-Guerrillas.
In her work with archives, Mila researches the intersection of personal and national memories, always seeking to reactivate forgotten histories, through forms ranging from lecture performances and video art to analytical essays. In 2018 she was commissioned by MoMA in New York to create a series of archive-based video installations for their landmark exhibition on Yugoslav modernist architecture. In 2020 Mila was awarded a Fellowship at Columbia University's Institute for Ideas & Imagination to pursue her long-term artistic research project Non-Aligned Newsreels, a deep-dive into the archival materials resulting from Yugoslavia's ciné-collaborations with the decolonizing world. The project was selected for the prestigious Cph:Lab in 2021.
Mila has been awarded grants from the Serbian Film Center, CNC-Cinémas du monde (France), EURIMAGES, the Doha Film Institute (Qatar) and the Jan Vrijman Fund (Netherlands). She is an alumnus of Archidoc, Documentary Campus, IDFAcademy and EURODOC. Mila was named a Chicken&Egg Award grantee in 2020. The same year she was invited to join the Oscars Documentary Branch of AMPAS.
Mila teaches documentary film-making and creative archive use at SciencesPo and INASup in Paris. Her films are regularly taught at several US and European universities, and she has been a guest lecturer at universities (Sorbonne, Harvard, Stanford). Mila regularly teaches at documentary film-making workshops (Scottish Documentary Institute, Balkan Discoveries x Balkan Documentary Center, Archidoc x La Fémis).
She received her Phd in cinema from the University of Westminster, and her MSc and BSc in Politics and International Relations from the London School of Economics. After obtaining a BA in Film and TV Production at the national film school in Belgrade, Mila specialized in documentary filmmaking at La Fémis in Paris and worked as production assistant and researcher on series for the Discovery Channel and ARTE France, as well as gaining experience on fiction films (“Apocalypto” dir. Mel Gibson, “Fade to Black” dir. Oliver Parker, “Brothers Bloom” dir. Rian Johnson).
Mila produced the Magnificent 7 Festival of European Feature Documentary Film in Belgrade since it’s creation in 2005, with the aim of creating an audience for cinematic auteur-driven documentary films in Serbia. She is a founding member of DOKSerbia, the Association of documentary filmmakers of Serbia, and served as the first President of the Board.
Mila is a member of the TED Fellows 2021 cohort.
Her most recent film The Other Side of Everything premiered at the Toronto IFF in 2017, and went on to win 32 awards including the prestigious IDFA Award for Best Documentary Film. It was a New York Times Critics' Pick, and was named one of the best films of 2018 by TheNew Yorker's Richard Brody. The film was HBO Europe’s first co-production with Serbia, and had a record-breaking theatrical release in Serbia. Mila's debut documentary film Cinema Komunisto, premiered at IDFA and the Tribeca Film Festival, and went on to win 16 awards including the Gold Hugo at the Chicago Int’l Film Festival in 2011, and the FOCAL Award for Creative Use of Archival Footage. Theatrically released in France, UK, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia, "Cinema Komunisto" was broadcast across Europe. She is currently in post-production on the documentary diptych Scenes from the Labudović Reels: Non-Aligned and Ciné-Guerrillas.
In her work with archives, Mila researches the intersection of personal and national memories, always seeking to reactivate forgotten histories, through forms ranging from lecture performances and video art to analytical essays. In 2018 she was commissioned by MoMA in New York to create a series of archive-based video installations for their landmark exhibition on Yugoslav modernist architecture. In 2020 Mila was awarded a Fellowship at Columbia University's Institute for Ideas & Imagination to pursue her long-term artistic research project Non-Aligned Newsreels, a deep-dive into the archival materials resulting from Yugoslavia's ciné-collaborations with the decolonizing world. The project was selected for the prestigious Cph:Lab in 2021.
Mila has been awarded grants from the Serbian Film Center, CNC-Cinémas du monde (France), EURIMAGES, the Doha Film Institute (Qatar) and the Jan Vrijman Fund (Netherlands). She is an alumnus of Archidoc, Documentary Campus, IDFAcademy and EURODOC. Mila was named a Chicken&Egg Award grantee in 2020. The same year she was invited to join the Oscars Documentary Branch of AMPAS.
Mila teaches documentary film-making and creative archive use at SciencesPo and INASup in Paris. Her films are regularly taught at several US and European universities, and she has been a guest lecturer at universities (Sorbonne, Harvard, Stanford). Mila regularly teaches at documentary film-making workshops (Scottish Documentary Institute, Balkan Discoveries x Balkan Documentary Center, Archidoc x La Fémis).
She received her Phd in cinema from the University of Westminster, and her MSc and BSc in Politics and International Relations from the London School of Economics. After obtaining a BA in Film and TV Production at the national film school in Belgrade, Mila specialized in documentary filmmaking at La Fémis in Paris and worked as production assistant and researcher on series for the Discovery Channel and ARTE France, as well as gaining experience on fiction films (“Apocalypto” dir. Mel Gibson, “Fade to Black” dir. Oliver Parker, “Brothers Bloom” dir. Rian Johnson).
Mila produced the Magnificent 7 Festival of European Feature Documentary Film in Belgrade since it’s creation in 2005, with the aim of creating an audience for cinematic auteur-driven documentary films in Serbia. She is a founding member of DOKSerbia, the Association of documentary filmmakers of Serbia, and served as the first President of the Board.
Mila is a member of the TED Fellows 2021 cohort.