Pitt and Pittsburgh Filmmakers to Screen Yugoslavian Films

PITTSBURGH—The University of Pittsburgh's Film Studies Program and the Center for Russian and East European Studies, in collaboration with Pittsburgh Filmmakers and with the support of a grant from The Sprout Fund, will screen a series of four films from the former Yugoslavia in "SAY Something About Yugoslavia."

Following is the schedule for the four films to be screened at the Pittsburgh Filmmakers' Melwood Screening Room, 477 Melwood Ave., Oakland, between Sept. 22 and Oct. 7.

Danis Tanovic's No Man's Land (2001)

Wednesday, Sept. 22, 8 p.m.

Friday, Sept. 24, 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 25, 7:30 p.m.

Goran Paskaljevic's Cabaret Balkan (1998)

Thursday, Sept. 23, 8 p.m.

Friday, Sept. 24, 9:30 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 25, 9:30 p.m.

Emir Kusturica's Underground (1995)

Wednesday, Sept. 29, 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 30, 7:30 p.m.

Srdjan Dragojevic's Pretty Village, Pretty Flame (1996)

Wednesday, Oct. 6, 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, Oct. 7, 7:30 p.m.

Admission is free to students with a valid Pitt ID, $5 for senior and members of Pittsburgh Filmmakers, and $6 for the general public.

Each of the four films in the series deals with the ethnic and religious conflicts that plagued the former Yugoslavia in the late 1980s and 1990s. This period of intense social strife coincided with an explosion of creative energy in the arts, no more so than in the movie industry, which managed to launch the careers of several directors who achieved international attention and praise for their films.

Tanovic's No Man's Land, about a Serbian and Croatian soldier trapped in a trench that contains a landmine about to detonate, was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Film in 2002.

Paskaljevic's Cabaret Balkan is set in 1995 Belgrade. The interlinking stories follow a series of events—from a fender-bender to a bus hijacking—that push the war-weary residents into violent confrontations.

Kusturica's Underground follows two friends who reinvent their personal and political existences to the point of absurdity as they witness the violent changes to the former Yugoslavia, from World War II to the 1990s. This film won a Golden Palm at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.

Dragojevic's Pretty Village, Pretty Flame is based on an incident between two young boys, Halil, a Muslim, and Milan, a Serb, who together watch the 1980 inauguration of the new Brotherhood and Unity Tunnel. Twelve years later, Halil and Milan are on opposing sides during the war in Bosnia. Milan, badly injured and in the same hospital with wounded Serbs and Muslims, recalls the events that brought him there.

For more information, visit www.pghfilmmakers.org/film/ or call 412-681-5449.

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9/17/04/tmw