The Decline of the Century: Testament L.Z. 1994
An epic documentary of rise and fall of Ustasha regime in Croatia.
An epic documentary of rise and fall of Ustasha regime in Croatia.
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. The documentary recounts Kenedi's experience of his two-year refugee status.
Kenedi is in a 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?
In Vukovar, during the Croatian War of Independence, after the devastation of the town, hundreds of tons of wheat have leaked out of a destroyed grain elevator. Thousands of ravens descend upon the wheat. Silo Danube, Vukovar was the last film the director shot on 35mm.
Documentary about a Hungarian police sergeant who saved people of village Kovilj during the 1942 raid.
The first film in what would ultimately become Zilnik’s famed Kenedi trilogy follows street hustler Kenedi Hasani and his friend as they roam the streets of Serbia seeking Kenedi’s parents. Kenedi Goes Back Home is Zilnik’s account of the Roma people who were forced to flee from the war in the Balkans to Germany in the 1990s and who, ten years later, are forced against their will to return to Serbia. Zilnik shows the immigrants' lives in relation to the prevailing ideology shaped today by the borders between rich and poor and by the often-racist selection process that determines who will be accepted into Western Europe. In presenting the dilemmas and identifying the crises these people face, he appeals for a solution.
At Roko Babičković’s farm, in the vicinity of the Hungarian border, Anica is hired. The newly established Schengen border has stopped trade and travels to Hungary, which was part of the local populace’s business. Anica decides to get married in Hungary and acquire the working documents that way. Roko helps her find the false groom who will marry her for his own ends.
In the first years of the EXIT music festival in Novi Sad, Serbia, for many, it was a trip to a "wonderland", after a decade of isolation, destruction, violent mobilizations, xenophobia and propaganda. This documentary, filmed during the festival in 2002 - every morning, at dawn when the visitors are tired, but also full of impressions after an exciting night - recorded that special mood.
"Fitzgerald" is Jovica's nickname among his friends. One day Jovica, a film projectionist from the childhood of Zilnik, an old jazz pianist and one of the actors from The Way Steel Was Tempered, hear of Ella Fitzgerald's unexpected death. Jovica is desperate; he plays the piano all night long and cries. His wife threatens him saying that she will throw him out of the house unless he gets rid of the piano.
Villagers of Kovilj grow cattle on the Danube islands. Marko, an owner of ten horses, around twenty cows and other cattle is a good friend with a Roma named Kamer, who helps him sell the cattle at local fairs. Željko, a young horse breeder leads the villagers when they try to save the cattle in the spring of 2006 from the big flood. An attractive waitress Ana rivets attention of the young men from Kovilj. Life and work close to the Danube connect the Roma people and the locals, and together they show up at the village gatherings (birthdays, patron saint’s days). After unsuccessful emotional relationships, Ana and a couple of her friends decide to leave the village and seek happiness on the other bank of the Danube.