Details
A lost art. A country that no longer exists. An international political movement that is nearly forgotten.
Serbian filmmaker Mila Turajlić delves into the archive of Stevan Labudović, a cameraman from Belgrade who travelled the world with Yugoslav President Josep Broz Tito. Labudović’s work documented the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961 – a bloc including many decolonizing nations that stood apart from both East and West during the Cold War.
What begins as an exploration of newsreel footage of the 1961 Non-Aligned summit in Belgrade becomes a love letter to a vanished country and its hopes for the future, a history of the early days of the Non-Aligned Movement, and a document of the affinity between two filmmakers—Turajlić, in her forties, and Labudović, nearing 90.
Shot in Belgrade, New York, and Algeria, and featuring archival footage from around the globe filmed by Labudović, this is a subtle, complex documentary, adroitly blending personal and global histories.
The screening on Saturday the 25th of May was followed by a Q&A between filmmaker Mila Turajlić and curator Lina Džuverović.
Scenes from the Labudović Reels is a documentary diptych of two feature-length films by Mila Turajlić that take us on an archival road trip through the birth of the Third World project, based on unseen 35mm materials filmed by Stevan Labudović, the cameraman of Yugoslav President Tito.
Also Playing: Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes from the Labudović Reels