Museum of the Revolution
The Balkans
•
1h 30m
Directed by Srđan Keča • Documentary • 2021 • 91 minutes
“The wind got up in the night and took our plans away,” reads the proverb in the opening titles of Museum of the Revolution. The words are a reference to the 1961 plan to build a grand museum in Belgrade as a tribute to Socialist Yugoslavia. It was supposed to “safeguard the truth” about the Yugoslav people. But the plan never got beyond the construction of the basement.
The derelict building now tells a very different story from the one envisioned by the initiators 60 years ago. In the damp, pitch-dark building live the outcasts of a society reshaped by capitalism. The film focuses on a girl who earns a little cash on the street by cleaning car windows with her mother. The girl has a close friendship with an old woman who also lives in the basement. Against the background of a transforming city, the three women find refuge in each other.
"This is an engrossing documentary, and one that raises questions about the ethics of intervening (or not) in the lives of people struggling to get by." —The New York Times
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