Non-Aligned Newsreels: Fragments #4

With Non-Aligned Newsreels: Fragments #4, Mila Turajlic invites the audience into a process of confronting archival material which has fallen out of political narratives. The starting point is the recovery of a trove of reels kept in the vaults of the Yugoslav Newsreels in her hometown, Belgrade.

Footage filmed by Yugoslav cameramen starting from the 1950s across a decolonising world takes us within the ranks of the Algerian Liberation Movement and FRELIMO, to newly-independent countries such as Mali and Tanzania, and the foundational gathering of the Non-Aligned Movement which took place in Belgrade in 1961.

Layering this ‘resurfaced’ footage with oral histories, sound recordings and personal archives into a confessional speculation, Turajlic performs the challenges of giving voice to unfulfilled political projects. The live ‘excavation’ opens a space where she and the audience journey together exploring the poetics of the fragmentary.

Mila Turajlić, born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, is an award-winning filmmaker and visual artist whose documentary works draw on a combination of oral histories, film archives and found footage to fabricate a new reflexive language that confronts memory and ruins with the disappearing narratives of history.

Her films include Cinema Komunisto, IDFA-winner The Other Side of Eeverything and the documentary diptych Non-Aligned & Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes From the Labudović Reels. Her video installations were commissioned by MoMA, curated for the 2022 Berlin Biennale and international exhibitions. She is a member of AMPAS (Oscars) Documentary Branch, and a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.