Cinema Current
words by Stefan Malešević
Cinema has always been the most broadly reaching art form, capable of shaping collective imagination, and influencing public opinion on current affairs. From its earliest days, it has been used to propel ideas, reinforce values, and rally people around causes. While its propagandist potential is undeniable, opinions diverge: some accept reducing cinema to a pamphlet if the cause is noble, while others see propaganda as a crime against the art itself, no matter what it promotes.
Funding bodies and industry structures, such as workshops, trainings, or pitching platforms, have streamlined the creative process, but also imposed bureaucratic checklists that films must satisfy to advance, pushing films more and more into the realm of propaganda. Yet many filmmakers manage to navigate this landscape and still deliver compelling works that treat film language not as a journalist uses words to deliver a message, but as a painter uses colours or a dancer uses rhythm.
“Cinema Current” celebrates precisely these films – works that electrify the soul and offer singular audiovisual experiences instead of recycling political platitudes. And it is this very gesture that makes them political.
Such is “Wondrous Is the Silence of My Master“. With little plot, it portrays a “father of a nation” while reflecting on both the national infatuation with heroic myths and the Western condescension toward its Eastern neighbours. Working in Montenegro’s small film industry, Ivan Salatić managed to create an arthouse period piece on a shoestring budget, with production value on par with the most polished cinematic achievements.
In contrast, Yugoslav Black Cinema master Želimir Žilnik rejects the notion of production value altogether. In “Eighty Plus“, his first fiction film in years, he lets naivety and low-budget aesthetics play into his hand, focusing on the warmth and sincerity so often missing from polished productions.
“The Swan Song of Fedor Ozerov” acknowledges the troubled world around us but uses it merely as a backdrop for a wild and tender tale of a musician searching for his lucky sweater. That a Belarusian in exile in Lithuania made a film not about politics, war, or any other form of misery is essentially an act of resistance, and a testament to the resilience of the human soul.
Though the films in this selection vary in style and subject, they are united by daring directorial visions and bold cinematic languages best experienced on the big screen.
