Bogdan Diklic Movies

Upon awakening from a two month-long coma to discover that his family has been slaughtered and he was on the verge of death, a man with total amnesia sets out to solve the mystery of his tragic past in this psychological thriller from director Dejan Zecevic. There was a bullet fired at point blank range, and then darkness. But now the blanket of shadows has been lifted to reveal an even deeper mystery. Informed that his family has been slain by a man named the Colonel, who claims to have been his best friend, the disoriented amnesiac discovers that he was formerly a Major of the Military Security Agency. Later, when an inspector from the State Security Agency appears claiming to have information about the murder of his family, the Major realizes that in order to confront the emptiness and despair that have come to define his existence, he must play the "game" that Inspector has set up for him and discover the identity of the assassin who stole his past. But the Businessman, the Mafioso, and the Politician are only the beginning, because after he realizes that he was a war criminal, he discovers that there was a fourth man. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

An emotionally devastated war veteran sets out to spread happiness across Bosnia after his friends spark a melee that leaves all but him dead in first-time Sarajevan director Antonio Nuic's deliberately-paced comedy drama. Every day Goran (Rakan Rushaidat) pass the time by drinking their worries away in the local watering hole. When a bitter dispute arises and Goran proves the sole survivor of the deadly fight that follows, he sells his parent's home, purchases a refreshment truck, and sets out to provide free soft drinks and grappa to anyone who asks. Goran's pledge never to spend two nights in the same town is soon challenged, however, when the grieving veteran falls for a pretty woman (Natasa Janjic) who has also been scarred by a tragic loss. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Andrej Kosak's prison drama Zvenenje v Glavi (Headnoise) takes place in a Yugoslavian prison in the 1970s and is based on a real incident. After guards deny inmates the opportunity to watch an Olympic basketball game, the prisoners stage a riot that leads to them controlling the jail. Keber (Jernej Sugman), who was the prisoners' unofficial leader, asks fellow inmate Mrak (Radko Polic) to create law and order. As Keber pines for his wife from whom he is separated, Mrak lets his newfound power corrupt him. Headnoise was screened at the 2003 Palm Springs Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Serbian cartoonist turned director Djordje Milosavljevic creates this darkly comic psychological thriller that makes subtle references to the political madness of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Nemanya (Dragan Micanovic) leads a normal life with a steady job and a fiancée, until he is waylaid by a sudden downpour in a seedy hotel called The Wheel. The hotel is populated by seemingly upstanding citizens, until the Nemanya is accused of being the notorious Laughing Monster, a serial killer who has been terrorizing the neighborhood. Nemanya is forced to fend off increasingly violent and bizarre attacks from the hysterical, xenophobic locals until events turn truly horrific. Milosavljevic deftly creates a tone of intense fear while exploring the individual capacity for violence and the banality of evil. Tockovi was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

This cynical Serbian comedy features a battle between Good and Evil. The tale centers around a teenage fashion student, Marina and a freewheeling swinger, Nikola. After their one night stand, which he does not remember, the spaced out girl finds herself pregnant. Marina will do anything to con Nikola into marrying her. She enlists her friends to devise a series of crazy plots. Included are scenes of a devil with a nose for coke and rock'n'roll, and an effete angel dancing to '60s tunes. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Slobodan Negic plays "The Professor," a brainy kid born to wealth. His opposite number is the homeless, orphaned "Cavka" (Yugoslavian for "Blackbird"), portrayed by Marko Ratic. In the tradition of the "Our Gang" comedies of yore, the Professor is forbidden by his snooty parents from associating with such riffraff as Cavka. How the boys outwit their elders and have a wonderful time forms the nucleus of this carefree comedy-drama. This Yugoslav-British co-production, was released to English-speaking theaters only a few months after its European debut. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Srdjan Karanovic has taken clips from a TV series he created in 1974 (Pogledaj Me, Nevernice) and, focusing on the protagonists in that series, he brings their lives up-to-date in this conventional sequel. The friends gather on a floating restaurant, and as they drift down-river listening to the strains of a band, each tries to outdo the others with what he or she has managed to achieve in the last decade. Before long, it becomes painfully clear that the truth hardly measures up to their stories -- and worse yet, now the raft looks like it is in trouble. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Both the premise and the storyline falter and ultimately fizzle in this rural drama by Zivko Nikolic. A distinctive fishing village on a picturesque lake is inhabited by hard-working women who support their male counterparts because the latter are too busy to work -- they have to hang out in the local pub, flirt with the waitresses there, and dream of going to America where they must assume they will be paid for their current behavior. At any rate, one young man realizes that the modern era is upon them, and he gets the idea that they should connect their beautiful lake to the ocean by drilling a tunnel through the intervening mountain range. The result would empty the lake and give them rich soil for producing abundant crops. When a blond American bombshell, a second-generation Yugoslavian, arrives from the U.S. to work in the pub, the young man enlists her aid in his dream project. But the men are too overwhelmed by testosterone to think clearly, and soon the village is rift by a blood feud, presaging the tragic decomposition that would tear apart the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. For anyone unfamiliar with the history of and divisions in Yugoslav society, parts of this film may zoom right past, uncaptured. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Sometimes handling the dead can be almost as difficult as handling the living, according to the Topalovic family and its many members -- from great-grandparents on down. They are losing ground in the fight to keep their cemetery business from going under and have had to make a clandestine alliance with n'er-do-well entrepreneurs that will supply them with recycled coffins at a cheap price -- an alliance that has kept the family in heavy debt to the grave-digging crooks. Meanwhile, young Mirko Topalovic has fallen in love with the daughter of one of the increasingly wealthy partners in the used coffin business. She works for a movie theater as a pianist (it is the era when silents are on the way out) and the owner of the theater has not yet fired her and switched to talkies because he wants her for himself. He suggests that they make a movie together -- an erotic movie he thinks to himself -- but seduction is his only goal. When Mirko starts to help out in this movie project, he comes to realize what is actually going on and overpowered by rage, he kills the woman and the theater owner. Puffed up with his aggressive deed, he goes home to convince the Topalovic family that they have to take up arms against the usurious grave-diggers -- and a wild and bloody melée ensues that will determine the fate of the family. Jelisaveta Sablic won the "Best Actress" award at the 1982 Pula Film Festival for her role as the sought-after female lead in this film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A Yugoslavian tourist in Africa buys a flute from a very sick man at a bazaar, unwittingly picking up the dread disease of smallpox in the process. When the tourist passes through the controls at Belgrade airport, he is already feeling the effects of the sickness and ends up in a ward at a hospital while the doctors try to diagnose his condition. The chief doctor misdiagnoses the man's illness and as a consequence, the smallpox spreads like wildfire -- to the little boy in a bed near him, to an unfortunate plumber, to the nursing staff -- and he dies before these others also succumb, within a matter of hours. The doctor who guessed wrong about the man's condition locks himself up in his office for protection and injects himself with serum as a safety measure. Meanwhile, after much bumbling along, the place is quarantined and the World Health Organization has someone arrive in a space suit to decontaminate the hospital and end the epidemic. Though what has happened to the flute that started the deaths? Some remaining scenes clue the viewers in to this unsettling question. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide