The Weight of Chains is a Canadian documentary film that takes a critical look at the role that the US, NATO and the EU played in the tragic breakup of a once peaceful and prosperous European state - Yugoslavia. The film, bursting with rare stock footage never before seen by Western audiences, is a creative first-hand look at why the West intervened in the Yugoslav conflict, with an impressive roster of interviews with academics, diplomats, media personalities and ordinary citizens of the former Yugoslav republics. This film also presents positive stories from the Yugoslav wars - people helping each other regardless of their ethnic background, stories of bravery and self-sacrifice.
War Photographer (2001)
Documentary about war photographer James Nachtwey, considered by many the greatest war photographer ever.
The Collaborator (2007)
During the conflict in the former Yugoslavia many soldiers were convinced to kill fellow citizens including friends and relatives in the name of patriotism. The Kolaborator follows the story of Goran, 24, a promising young soccer player who is forced to become a soldier. Goran goes from being a talented athlete to an executioner virtually overnight. Following orders, Goran lines up civilians, shoots them and drags them into mass graves. Justifying his role as a protector of his people, Goran becomes increasingly detached from the task until his soccer coach and life-long friend, Asim, is led in front of him. As a familiar face stands defeated before him, Goran must reconsider his actions and choose between his own life and that of his dear friend.
Serbia, Year Zero (2001)
Documentary that follows events after the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, while looking back on the previous fifteen years, tracing his rise to power. Personal testimony alternates with analysis of a disintegrating society.
The Peaks of Zelengore (1976)
During the Battle of Sutjeska, partisan troops must endure 24 hours of big and heavy attacks on German units Ljubino grave, to the main Partisan units, with the wounded and the Supreme Headquarters, pulled out the ring that is tightened around them.
El Shatt – A Blueprint for Utopia (2023)
Hundreds of frozen and starved people floating on boats in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea fleeing from the war... Familiar scenes that we are used to seeing in recent times. But the year is 1944, and the refugees are travelling from Europe to Africa. After Italian capitulation,and before the arrival of German army, 28 000 Dalmatian Croats left their home villages and towns to live for two years under the tents in the middle of Egyptian desert, in a kind of a communist model village that was formed to show the Allies how the new Yugoslavia will look like when the war ends. This is a story about them.
260 Days (NaN)
The carefree and somewhat idyllic life of a ten year old boy named Marijan is violently interrupted when war ravages his small town of Dalj and his families closest friends and neighbors turn on them purely because they are Croatian. Marijan is forced to witness and experience things an adult would have an incredibly difficult time dealing with. He is nevertheless faced with the inexplicably horrid events war brings out in people. The story centers on a present day Marijan- now the very successful owner of a wood manufacturing business. On one random day a man walks into his store and all of the memories he wishes he could long forget come flooding back, forcing him to relive them. Despite his immense hardships, Marijan lives on in forgiveness, always seeking the positives that lay in the future rather than rehashing and remaining in the past.
The Other Side of Everything (2017)
For Serbian filmmaker Mila Turajlic, a locked door in her mother's apartment in Belgrade provides the gateway to both her remarkable family history and her country's tumultuous political inheritance.
The Long Road Through Balkan History (2009)
Bosnian Croat writer Miljenko Jergović and Serbian writer Marko Vidojković replace one another by the steering wheel of Yugo, a symbol of their common past while driving on the Brotherhood and Unity Highway that stretched across five of six republics of Yugoslavia.
Ulysses' Gaze (1995)
An exiled filmmaker finally returns to his home country where former mysteries and afflictions of his early life come back to haunt him once more.
Save the Last Bullet (NaN)
Based on events from the Balkan Wars. 1991: Amidst the cruel battle of Vukovar, a brave squad of Croatian soldiers fights its way through the besieged country to deliver a truck full of weapons to the Serbian border.
The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974)
A study of the psychology of a champion ski-flyer, whose full-time occupation is carpentry.
The Unforgiven (2017)
Is it possible for a war criminal to find forgiveness and to reconcile with the past? How do you find your way back to what is known as a normal life when you have been convicted of one of the worst crimes of all – a crime against humanity? Esad Landzo has looked for answers for many years, but in vain. He decides to make one last attempt. The Balkan War criminal travels back to Bosnia to meet his former camp-guard friend, his victims and his family. Will he ever be forgiven? Should he?
Once Brothers (2010)
Drazen Petrovic and Vlade Divac were two friends who grew up together sharing the common bond of basketball. Together, they lifted the Yugoslavian National team to unimaginable heights. After conquering Europe, they both went to USA where they became the first two foreign players to attain NBA stardom. But with the fall of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day 1991, Yugoslavia split up. A war broke out between Petrovic's Croatia and Divac's Serbia. Long buried ethnic tensions surfaced. And these two men, once brothers, were now on opposite sides of a deadly civil war. As Petrovic and Divac continued to face each other on the basketball courts of the NBA, no words passed between the two. Then, on the fateful night of June 7, 1993, Drazen Petrovic was killed in an auto accident. This film will tell the gripping tale of these men, how circumstances beyond their control tore them apart, and whether Divac has ever come to terms with the death of a friend before they had a chance to reconcile.
Saved by Language (2015)
Can a language save your life? Yes it can, even an ancient one from the 15th century. Saved by Language tells the story of Moris Albahari, a Sephardic Jew from Sarajevo (born 1930), who spoke Ladino/Judeo-Spanish, his mother tongue, to survive the Holocaust. Moris used Ladino to communicate with an Italian Colonel who helped him escape to a Partizan refuge after he ran away from the train taking Yugoslavian Jews to Nazi death camps. By speaking in Ladino to a Spanish-speaking US pilot in 1944 he was able to survive and lead the pilot, along with his American and British colleagues, to a safe Partizan airport.
Cinema Komunisto (2010)
This eye-opening and bittersweet chronicle of the Yugoslavian film industry recounts how the cinema was used—often with direct intervention from President Josip Broz Tito—to create and recreate the young nation’s history, replete with heroes and myths that didn’t always hew closely to reality.
Freedom from Despair (2004)
True stories of the Croatian People's struggle to overcome oppression from communist Yugoslavia and the 1990's fight to save their war ravaged homeland.
Variola Vera (1982)
An Albanian pilgrim, infected with an unknown disease, is on his way back to Belgrade from the Middle East. When doctors realize that it is a disease that has been considered eradicated, it is already too late - variola vera begins to languish and the hospital is quarantined.
Fragments of Humanity (2022)
In the Kosovo War, human dignity was shattered by the terrors of the Serbian government and the Albanian liberation army. Truths about the victims’ fates faded away, which is why a Finnish forensic research group led by Helena Ranta got a mission to act as an unbiased agent and investigate the real course of events.
The Fog of Srebrenica (2016)
This is the story of survivors of the Srebrenica genocide, the only holocaust in Europe since WWII. 8,372 Bosnian men and boys were killed in one week.Heartbreaking and mind blowing testimonials - the story told by survivors, contrasted by hauntingly beautiful landscapes and horrifying archive. The film portrays extraordinary characters, people who have been struggling to come to terms with the past as well as dealing with the harsh realities of living in one of the poorest countries in Europe. Their stories raise serious and profound questions about the nature of human existence, war and forgiveness.
Sky Above Srebrenica (2012)
On 11th of July 1995, the most mortifying crimes after World War II in Europe destroyed the Bosnian town of Srébrenica. Shootings and deportations beyondimagination were preceded by a betrayal of humaity: while 40,000 civilians were looking into the sky of Srébrenica, waiting for a sign from the international community, guaranteeing their protection, the headquarters of the United Nations decided to surrender. The betrayal kill 8,372 men, women and children. Sky above Srebrenica (101 minutes) is based on protocols of the secret crisis meetings of the UN headquarters. In a unique way never before released original material of the consequences is shown next to those who are responsible for these.