Ljuba Tadic Movies

In a surreal and arresting sequence at the outset of Milos Radivojevic's Awakening From the Dead, a long-buried professor and writer, Miki (Svetozar Cvetkovic), pushes back the slab from his tomb and climbs out of his grave, his chalky face wracked with grief and melancholia. The film then backtracks several years to 1999, during the NATO bombing of Belgrade and the war between Kosovo and Yugoslavia -- when the writer left his family behind in Belgrade and traveled to his boyhood hometown of Kosovo after a lengthy absence. Amid a long and sometimes painful psychological journey, Miki must revisit old lovers and friends, unearth the skeletons that his family has long kept hidden, and confront the unhealed emotional wounds of his kith and kin. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Winner of the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, this drama centers on the Balkan conflict as viewed through the eyes of a filmmaker named A (Harvey Keitel). Director Theo Angelopoulos wrote the screenplay, drawing from personal experiences. A is a Greek émigré director who returns to his homeland after 35 years in the U.S., ostensibly to screen his latest film, which is so controversial that it attracts religious protests. In fact, A's real purpose is to search for three reels of undeveloped film that may be the first ever shot by pioneer Balkan filmmakers the Manakis brothers, who documented simple circa-1900 peasant life. A's Homeric journey includes flashbacks into past historical events. He travels by taxi to Albania, where he enlists the help of a film archivist (Maia Morgenstern, who plays all four female roles). She joins him on a train ride to Bucharest, Romania. An extensive flashback chronicles A's childhood under Communism in Bucharest. His next stop is Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, where he is directed to Sarajevo. Angelopoulos mixes scenes shot during the actual Balkan war with historic re-enactments and dreamscapes to examine the role of the artist in political upheaval. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Politics issues dominate this sci-fi story set in 2041 in the former Yugoslavia. Most of Europe is now controlled by "thought police," but a former politician and an ex-cop are running a girls' boarding school in defiance of the current regime, modeled on the more idyllic 1980s. These partners want to revamp the ruins of Belgrade so electricity and water can be restored and the buildings made habitable again. The citizens are currently scattered across the countryside, and the film follows them, as well as the boarding school directors and a female reporter, as they all work together to confront the system. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

As the horror of World War II is about to descend on Yugoslavia, a young intellectual in Zagreb is struggling with the meaning of life, his life in particular. He has a tendency to fall in love with women who are not likely to stay with one man for long, but his romantic interludes are cut short when the military calls him up for induction into the army. Completely against the whole idea of military service and a possible early death, he feigns insanity and it works -- he is released from serving his stint. Once back in a relationship with one woman, he takes a closer look at the crisis building around him -- and experiences an awakening, spawned, in part, by the suicide of a friend. With the realization that pending disaster is at hand, he turns around to enlist in the army again -- if he can convince them that he is "recovered" from his mental condition. Mira Furlan won "Best Supporting Actress" at the 1982 Pula Film Festival for her role as one of the lovers in this film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This is an uneven and slow-paced drama with a good performance by lead Slobodan Perovic as a lonely, arrogant doctor. The doctor lives in a Russian village far off the beaten path of civilization. He prefers hanging out by himself in his home, in his office, or on the way to either place. He also takes pensive strolls through the nearby woods. Sometimes a little girl goes with him on the nature treks, but otherwise the doctor is left to his own thoughts, without companionship. The upshot is that his life is pretty boring. Then he meets a political prisoner in a mental institution and as they converse, the doctor begins to have serious doubts about the kind of life he has been living. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A television actor and his friend, a barge captain, abandon their everyday lives without a thought in this dark comedy. They do not mind that a television news crew is following them. It is with almost a sense of relief that they are overwhelmed by crowds of equally discontented people leaving their lives, who look to the camera crew to swell their numbers as their actions become part of news reports. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

On a visit to the grave of his father, who died in the concentration camps, a soccer coach spots a diminutive powerhouse player on the local fields and brings him onto his team to play. The boy does so well that the coach grows quarrelsome and jealous. After a clash with the team's manager, he leaves and accepts a contract to coach a German team, even though this results in his feeling as if he has betrayed his heritage. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Pavle (Bekim Fehmiu) is an honest man, and he has a crusade: he is responding to Tito's Call-to-Order letter which urges that people root out corruption. Pavle knows about some corruption in his own factory; the higher-ups have their own private beaches and resorts in payment for some shady deals they have done. He does not meet with a very warm response when he tries to make these abuses known. Pavle Pavlovic the film, also met with a cool response from Yugoslav officialdom; even though it was inspired by Tito's own crusade, it made the system of "self-rule" look bad. Because of this, the film was barred from competing in the 1975 Yugoslav Film Festival, though it was allowed to be shown. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This Yugoslavian epic depicts the World War II military exploits of Marshall Tito (played here by Richard Burton), who later became the unrivalled ruler of that troubled country. During that war, he was instrumental in resisting Nazi efforts to exterminate the Yugoslav partisans. The film details the events surrounding the climactic battle with the Germans along the Sutjeska River. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this Yugoslavian antiwar film, a World War I veteran returns home only to be haunted by the ghosts of the soldiers he led. He is overwhelmed by feelings of guilt and the sense that he is somehow responsible for their deaths. They appear completely visible to him. When he seeks the help of a psychiatrist, he receives ridicule rather than help and winds up being comforted by his old friend, a doctor who has been barred from practice for excessive truthfulness. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this satire and comedy, Jovana is training to participate in the cross-country skiing portion of the Winter Olympics and is being coached by a priest. Despite her mentor's profession, the girl herself is easily distracted by romantic notions and has brief liaisons with a peasant and then with the peasant's brother-in-law. However, nothing distracts her from her training. Throughout the film, she is seen running from one place to another. When her peasant boyfriend kills his brother-in-law and is pursued and finally killed, this has little effect on the indefatigable would-be champion. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Two soldiers who helped liberate a town from the enemy return home at the end of World War II to find their own village has been destroyed. The only living soul left is a crazy German who wanders aimlessly around the rubble. The soldiers are driven insane due to their inability to halt their violent behavior in peacetime. They struggle with the hero worship of the town they liberated as the madness of war continues after the guns have stopped shooting. The two argue over a woman before taking their weaponed frustrations out on the harmless German half-wit and each other in the tragic aftermath of war, death and destruction. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide