Petar Kralj Movies

Back from the war, Croatian-born Sergije (Slavko Stimac) and Bosnian buddy Nikola (Srdjan Todorovic) rent beach chairs in Belgrade to Sava Lake sunbathers. Unable to locate his missing family, Sergije is barely surviving during the economic crisis. Sergije loves attractive Sonja (Mirjana Jokovic), who has been forced into prostitution to support her family, but their love appears doomed. This $1.7 million drama, Yugoslavia's entry for the foreign-language Academy Award, won the country's national film prize. Shown at 1997 film festivals in Palm Springs and Macedonia. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

In this amusing political satire, director Predrag Antonijevic parodies two hypocritical party chairmen in a small village, and by inference, the Yugoslavian political system on a broader scale. The first chairman of the people's council occupies his time rather dubiously -- by throwing grenades into a stream to kill off many fish at once (a well-known, illegal technique, usually done with dynamite). One day the chairman finds an unexploded bomb, and, in the process of trying to extract its gunpowder, he blows himself up and not the fish. Villagers ignore how he died, call him a hero, and name a school after him. The next party chairman is out for serious reform and begins a campaign to awaken the peasants to class consciousness -- and in turn, dies an ignominious death. Once more, the villagers laud their dearly departed chairman in terms that none could really believe, and life goes on as they wait for the next chairman to take up whatever erratic, illegal, or extreme behavior he prefers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Brushed with shadings of a larger social and political commentary, this occasionally hilarious and consistently funny comedy looks at a closet alcoholic, Dr. Ilich (Ljuba Tadic) who treats alcoholism in others with an iron hand and a zany therapeutical approach. Between the music of Wagner, a diet in which apples figure prominently, and exercises that look like Chicken Little in take-off mode, the doctor is convinced his patients will be cured. What really ails most of them is what caused their alcohol problem in the first place -- so when the eccentric doctor takes six of his patients to a nearby brewery to demonstrate the success of his treatment, chaos results. First the apples taken on the trip are spiked by one patient (two of them "clink" their apples in joy) and then the brewery management and its own alcohol-addicted crew add to the patients' antics. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

An investigative journalist covers the murder of an abortionist who has sexually blackmailed his patients. A man confesses to the crime, but the newsman knows he is not guilty. Public pressure from the government and the police mounts to have the case solve quickly. The journalist is soon on the trail of the real killer in this suspenseful crime drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi