Zvonko Lepetic Movies

A Moslem family in Sarajevo is torn apart by ideological differences during World War II in this emotionally charged social drama. Azra (Dara Dzokic) is a wife whose philandering husband is suspected of collaborating with the Nazis. Her son runs off to join the Resistance, pitting family members against each other. Another story has two brothers fighting on opposite sides of the bloody war, one with the Germans and the other with the partisans. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

If Musa can only bring himself to stomach his work at the saw mill for a little longer, he will reach retirement age and will have a nice pension. However, a strike has brought home to him just how bad the wages and working conditions are, and he doesn't return after the strike is over. Meanwhile, his son has had no job for a long time but plays soccer all the time, when he is not wooing the girl who runs the newsstand at the train station. Musa is a bad-tempered fellow who quarrels often with his son. On one of these occasions, his wife throws both of them out of the house. Later she goes mad and then dies. Eventually, the son is arrested for a rape he didn't commit, but this doesn't stop the boy and his girlfriend from getting married, they just do it in jail. The father, left alone with his grudges and grievances, seems to collapse in on himself. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this black satire flashing back to the 1950s Yugoslavia under Tito, when relations with the Soviet Union were broken off, a pro-Stalinist Iliya (Danilo Bata Stojkovic) and his brother have never wavered in their political support of the Soviet dictator and his policies. They both served prison terms back in the 1950s for their beliefs. Now nearly three decades have passed, and a new neighbor who has spent a long time in Paris comes under police suspicion because of his long years outside the country. It turns out, however, that the man is innocent of any wrong-doing but Iliya is convinced he is a spy for the forces of imperialism, and, armed with a tape-recorder and camera, he carries out a surreptitious, evidence-gathering surveillance. At the same time, Iliya is whipping up his neighbors into a real frenzy of anti-imperialist furor directed against the hapless neighbor. Before Iliya can be stopped, even his wife joins him, but his daughter is hardly a convert -- embarrassed would be a better word. Humor and pathos rise along with the paranoia, as Iliya and his delusions rule the day. This film won the Golden Arena award at the 1984 Pula Film Festival, and Danilo Bata Stojkovic was awarded "Best Actor" for his role as Iliya, at the same festival. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This historical drama is about the turbulence in Yugoslavia between 1946 and 1956 when Tito instituted his own version of socialism, thereby alienating both East and West. The political climate and divisions at that time are reflected in actual documentary footage within the narrative itself. The story is about the installation of a high-voltage generator and what happens when people unite to work for their own common cause (either a generator or national autonomy) - if only people could agree on what the common cause is. A young dissident is arrested, imprisoned, escapes, and is shot by a border guard. A woman who supports Tito speaks up for him at the factory where the generator will be installed, and later manages to smuggle the plans for the generator into Yugoslavia. Another white-collar worker opts for residing in Austria where all these troubles do not exist. In these images of a nation at odds with itself and the world, a vague foreboding is bound to affect viewers who know that civil war in the 1990s would destroy whatever fragile unity was promoted by this film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A young man who long ago gave over the hard work of being a composer for the easy life of a rich man's son is bamboozled into slapping together a musical production. Having borrowed right and left, and plagiarized the works of a friend, he feels cheap, very cheap. He feels even worse when the awful thing is a success. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

During World War II a pre-teen boy briefly takes care of a young partisan man, hiding and feeding him rather than turning him over to the collaboration government authorities. To keep the man alive, he even sacrifices his beloved pigeons, which he had kept safe from hungry townspeople and the arrogant Italian occupiers who shot them for sport. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the leading character observes "The play's the thing, wherein to catch the conscience of the king." In this Yugoslavian movie, a performance of Hamlet in a small village apparently catches the conscience of the whole town. The village commissar, who knows nothing of the play, insists on mounting a production of Hamlet over the objections of the village teacher, who knows the tale well. Thinking only of the prestige it will bring, the commissar plans to use local villagers in the parts. The son of a man the commissar had framed for theft gets the part of Hamlet, and the commissar plays the usurping king. During a fight scene, the boy Hamlet, manages to wrest a confession to the thefts from the town treasurer, but when he hears of his father's suicide, he promptly stabs the commissar. The commissar, bleeding, orders the post-performance dance to go on. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide