Ksenija Pajic Movies

In this black comedy from Croatia, Cinco Kapulica (Ivo Gregurevic) is an Croatian exile living in Berlin who has hatched what he's convinced is a brilliant scheme. He's been able to obtain a death certificate for himself, and he plans to have himself shipped back to the old country in a casket, which will allow him to go home, and allow his family to get his insurance benefits. Cinco's pal Marinko (Ivica Vidovic) seems a bit dubious about this, but agrees to help, warding off body snatchers who want to harvest organs from Cinco's corpse while trying to resolve some confusion regarding a Turk who came up with the same idea (which becomes all the more complicated when the lids to their coffins are switched). Cinco and Marinko discover when they arrive that Croatia is not what it once was in the midst of the nation's political unrest, and when Cinco escapes his coffin only to encounter Chetnik troops, they panic, convinced that the dead have come back to attack them. Director Krsto Papic co-wrote the screenplay with Mate Matisic, adapting the story from Matisic's play Cinco and Marinko. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This is classified as a rollicking comedy in Yugoslavian territories, despite having a story dealing with a realistic and horrifying catalogue of woes. In the film, seven women friends have grown tired of working for a farmer who refuses to pay their wages. They steal one of his tractors to go into town. There, they employ a black-market labor operative to help them find work in Munich. He takes their money and passports to try and help them do just this but winds up arrested before he can do anything to help them. The women are then forced to go through a local health exam to be passed as eligible for work, and after that, they somehow pull through, despite a series of rapes, pregnancies, and beatings. When they finally do get a job together at a new factory, they discover that the factory has no access to raw materials and will shortly be shutting down. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This is an amusing and enjoyable romantic comedy buoyed by witty dialogue. Drago (Miki Manojlovic) has just been released from prison; he tried to hold up a village bank with a toy gun, so he's not exactly a hardened criminal. He crashes in the apartment of Zdenka (Mira Furlan), a shy but friendly factory worker with a boring boyfriend. When Drago goes off in pursuit of Nina (Dubravka Ostojic), the woman he loves, he discovers she has a flourishing art gallery and a rich, married lover. How can he compete with that? Meanwhile, Zdenka slowly develops an affection for Drago though he does not notice her, creating a complex triangle. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide