Old Gold: 100 Years of Pavle Vuisić (1926-1988)

A century after his birth, Pavle Vuisić remains one of the defining faces of Yugoslav cinema. Gruff, funny, tender and effortlessly human, he never seemed to be acting so much as inhabiting the world on screen. A mechanic, innkeeper, neighbour or drunk uncle – Vuisić could embody ordinary people without ever reducing them to stereotypes.

This selection spans black comedy, intimate drama and stories of a country caught between camaraderie and violence. Across three very different roles, Vuisić reveals both his remarkable range and the contradictions of the people and society he portrayed.

Not a polished star, but a people’s actor in the truest sense – and, a hundred years on, still impossible to look away from.

Marko Grba Singh and Stefan Malešević, film programmers

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  Life is Beautiful
  Sick of the system he works in, an engineer stops the train in the middle of nowhere. The passengers decide to spend some time in a local cafe, where tensions and arguments escalate into violence.
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  Petria’s Wreath
  A portrait of an illiterate village woman whose life is shaped by love, loss and the three men she married.
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  The Marathon Family
  The eccentric Topalović family has been in the burial business for decades. When the old Pantelija dies, five generations of his heirs start to fight for the inheritance.