Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels
The Balkans
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1h 40m
Directed by Mila Turajlić • Documentary • 2023 • 100 minutes
Filmmaker Mila Turajlić was born in Belgrade, and grew up singing patriotic songs extolling Yugoslav leader Josep Broz Tito. The images that populated her “Yugoslavia of the mind” came largely from government newsreels—and the most iconic of those were shot by Stevan Labudović.
In NON-ALIGNED: SCENES FROM THE LABUDOVIĆ REELS, Turajlić delves into Labudović’s work documenting the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement, a largely Yugoslav-led bloc including many decolonizing nations that stood apart from both East and West during the Cold War.
What begins as an exploration of newsreel footage of the 1961 Non-Aligned summit in Belgrade becomes a love letter to a vanished country and its hopes for the future, a history of the early days of the Non-Aligned Movement, and a document of the affinity between two filmmakers—Turajlić, in her forties, and Labudović, nearing 90.
Shot in Belgrade, New York, and Algeria, and featuring archival footage from around the globe filmed by Labudović, this is a subtle, complex documentary, adroitly blending personal and global histories.
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