Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes from the Labudović Reels
This fascinating archive-driven documentary covers the media struggle during the Algerian war of independence through the images and diaries of Stevan Labudović. Working for Yugoslav Newsreels, Labudović was Yugoslav President Tito’s cameraman for quarter of a century. The Yugoslav support for the anticolonial struggles and the country’s role in the non-aligned movement ensured the cameraman’s insider access. As a result, the archive of the Yugoslav Newsreels in Belgrade contains a unique and largely unexplored material. The director rediscovers and footage and accompanies Labudović on his return to Algeria sixty years later, where they discover that his legacy lives on.
Mila Turajlić is an award-winning director born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Her films have screened at numerous festivals and been released theatrically in Europe and North America. Her film The Other Side of Everything (2017), HBO Europe’s first co-production with Serbia, won 32 awards, including the IDFA Award for Best Documentary Film. Mila’s debut feature doc, Cinema Komunisto (2011) played at over 100 festivals and won 16 awards, including the FOCAL Award for Creative Use of Archival Footage. In her work with archives, Mila delves into questions about the representation of history at the intersection of personal memories and political narratives, seeking to reactivate forgotten histories. Her research-based artistic practice ranges from video installations commissioned by MoMA New York, to live documentary performances. In 2020, Mila was invited to join the AMPAS (Oscars) Documentary Branch. Her most recent project, the documentary diptych Ciné-Guerrillas and Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels, an archival road trip through the cinematic birth of the Third World, premiered in autumn 2022.
