- Occupation
Director - Country
Serbia
Žilnik Želimir
Tito Among the Serbs for the Second Time
Belgrade 1994, a man in Marshal Tito’s original uniform appears in different parts of the city. Instantly, groups of people flock around him and get involved in passionate discussions. Almost all of them accept to play the game, complain about the old times in Yugoslavia and blame Tito for everything.
Kenedi is Getting Married
Kenedi is in huge debt after building a house for his family. He finds himself searching for any kind of work to support himself, for as little as 10 EUR per day, a scarce amount to help him relief his debt. Ultimately, Kenedi decides to look for money in sex business. Initially offering his services to older ladies and widows, he expands his ‘business’ to offer sex to wealthy men. When he finds out about new liberal European laws on gay marriages, Kenedi sees prospects in looking for a “marriage material”, to renew his search for a legal status in EU. The opportunity arises during EXIT Music Festival, when he meets Max, a guy from Munich. But will their promising relationship bring the solution to Kenedi’s problems?
Kenedi Goes Back Home
This is a story of Yugoslavs who left the country in war and spent over ten years in Western Europe as refugees or in asylum. In the second half of the year 2002 European Union sent many of these people back to Serbia and Montenegro together with their families, believing that there were no more reasons for their stay. Procedures for their return were usually very strict. Families would be gathered during the night, transported to the airport and sent to Belgrade on the first flight. To make things more dramatic, the majority of children born in some of the Western European countries speak and write the other language better than the mother tongue. As they sold everything they owned when they were leaving the country, they are facing a situation where normal life is practically impossible.
Europe Next Door
Želimir Žilnik's film follows the effects of the Schengen Agreement on the Hungarian-Serbian border over a period from summer 2004 to spring 2005. In the form of a docu-drama he gives local merchants and farmers an opportunity to talk about their experiences and to show how they live and work.
Fortress Europe
This docu-drama was shot in bordering regions between Hungary and Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary in the south-eastern bordering region within the Schengen zone. The central plot spins around a Russian family: Svetlana lives in Trieste with her friends and is waiting for her daughter Katja’s arrival. Katja is escorted by Svetlana’s former husband (Katja’s father) Artjom. During the travel the two have problems, they find themselves in a foreign country without documents that would make the rest of their journey to the West legal.
The Old School of Capitalism
The Old School of Capitalism is rooted in the first wave of workers revolts to hit Serbia since the advent of capitalism. Desperate workers bulldoze through factory gates and are devastated to discover the site looted by the bosses. Eccentrically escalating confrontations, including a melee with workers in football shoulder-pads and helmets and boss and his security force in bulletproof vests, prove fruitless. Committed young anarchists offer solidarity, take the bosses hostage. A Russian tycoon, a Wall Street trader and US VP Biden’s visit to Belgrade unexpectedly complicate events that lead toward a final shock. Along the way, the film produces an increasingly complex and yet unfailingly lively account of present-day, in fact, up-to-the-minute struggles under the misery-inducing effects of both local and global capital. The film’s completely unpredictable narrative movingly demonstrates, on the one hand, the workers apparently inexhaustible capacity for courage, misrecognition, betrayal and self-betrayal—and on the other, the young anarchists’ passionate conviction, which is more grounded in utopian subjectivity than in real-life experience.
Kenedi, Lost and Found
After his participation in filming of “Kenedi Goes Back Home”, Kenedi Hasani decided to illegally go to EU countries where his father, mother, brothers and sisters still are. During one of his illegal crossings of the Hungarian-Austrian border in 2003, he is captured by the border police and spends a couple of months in a refugee camp. Then he manages to escape to Austria and then to Germany and Holland. The film crew meets him in Vienna in January 2005 at the showing of “Kenedi Returns Home” at the University. The documentary recounts Kenedi’s experience of his two-year refugee status. The team witnesses his return to Serbia. The protagonist decides to build a house in Novi Sad, because the other members of the family are in the “process of readmission” and are arriving soon.
Belgrade 1994, a man in Marshal Tito’s original uniform appears in different parts of the city. Instantly, groups of people flock around him and get involved in passionate discussions. Almost all of them accept to play the game, complain about the old times in Yugoslavia and blame Tito for everything.
Kenedi is Getting Married
Kenedi is in huge debt after building a house for his family. He finds himself searching for any kind of work to support himself, for as little as 10 EUR per day, a scarce amount to help him relief his debt. Ultimately, Kenedi decides to look for money in sex business. Initially offering his services to older ladies and widows, he expands his ‘business’ to offer sex to wealthy men. When he finds out about new liberal European laws on gay marriages, Kenedi sees prospects in looking for a “marriage material”, to renew his search for a legal status in EU. The opportunity arises during EXIT Music Festival, when he meets Max, a guy from Munich. But will their promising relationship bring the solution to Kenedi’s problems?
Kenedi Goes Back Home
This is a story of Yugoslavs who left the country in war and spent over ten years in Western Europe as refugees or in asylum. In the second half of the year 2002 European Union sent many of these people back to Serbia and Montenegro together with their families, believing that there were no more reasons for their stay. Procedures for their return were usually very strict. Families would be gathered during the night, transported to the airport and sent to Belgrade on the first flight. To make things more dramatic, the majority of children born in some of the Western European countries speak and write the other language better than the mother tongue. As they sold everything they owned when they were leaving the country, they are facing a situation where normal life is practically impossible.
Europe Next Door
Želimir Žilnik's film follows the effects of the Schengen Agreement on the Hungarian-Serbian border over a period from summer 2004 to spring 2005. In the form of a docu-drama he gives local merchants and farmers an opportunity to talk about their experiences and to show how they live and work.
Fortress Europe
This docu-drama was shot in bordering regions between Hungary and Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary in the south-eastern bordering region within the Schengen zone. The central plot spins around a Russian family: Svetlana lives in Trieste with her friends and is waiting for her daughter Katja’s arrival. Katja is escorted by Svetlana’s former husband (Katja’s father) Artjom. During the travel the two have problems, they find themselves in a foreign country without documents that would make the rest of their journey to the West legal.
The Old School of Capitalism
The Old School of Capitalism is rooted in the first wave of workers revolts to hit Serbia since the advent of capitalism. Desperate workers bulldoze through factory gates and are devastated to discover the site looted by the bosses. Eccentrically escalating confrontations, including a melee with workers in football shoulder-pads and helmets and boss and his security force in bulletproof vests, prove fruitless. Committed young anarchists offer solidarity, take the bosses hostage. A Russian tycoon, a Wall Street trader and US VP Biden’s visit to Belgrade unexpectedly complicate events that lead toward a final shock. Along the way, the film produces an increasingly complex and yet unfailingly lively account of present-day, in fact, up-to-the-minute struggles under the misery-inducing effects of both local and global capital. The film’s completely unpredictable narrative movingly demonstrates, on the one hand, the workers apparently inexhaustible capacity for courage, misrecognition, betrayal and self-betrayal—and on the other, the young anarchists’ passionate conviction, which is more grounded in utopian subjectivity than in real-life experience.
Kenedi, Lost and Found
After his participation in filming of “Kenedi Goes Back Home”, Kenedi Hasani decided to illegally go to EU countries where his father, mother, brothers and sisters still are. During one of his illegal crossings of the Hungarian-Austrian border in 2003, he is captured by the border police and spends a couple of months in a refugee camp. Then he manages to escape to Austria and then to Germany and Holland. The film crew meets him in Vienna in January 2005 at the showing of “Kenedi Returns Home” at the University. The documentary recounts Kenedi’s experience of his two-year refugee status. The team witnesses his return to Serbia. The protagonist decides to build a house in Novi Sad, because the other members of the family are in the “process of readmission” and are arriving soon.
Želimir Žilnik (1942) was first noticed by the end of the 1960s for his visually expressive and critical films, and recognized both in his native Yugoslavia and internationally with the documentary The Unemployed (Grand Prix at the Oberhausen Film Festival, 1968), and the feature Early Works (Grand Prix at the Berlin Film Festival, 1969). Žilnik is noted for his critique of totalitarian systems and his socially engaging style. Author of numerous features, documentaries and docu-dramas. Selected filmography: Stara škola kapitalizma (The Old School of Capitalism) (2009; Kenedi se ženi (Kenedi marries) (2007); Kenedi se vraca kuci (Kenedi returns home) (2003); Tvrdjava Evropa (Fortress Europe) (2001); Kud plovi ovaj brod (Where this Ship Sails) (1999); Dupe od mramora (Marble Ass) (1995); Tito po drugi put medju Srbima (Tito's Second Time Among the Serbs) (1993); Tako se kalio čelik (The way Steel was Tempered) (1988); Sve zvezde (All Stars) (1985); Abschied (Farewell) (1976); Paradies (Paradise) (1976); Rani radovi (Early Works) (1969).