Synopsis

1941. The German Armed Forces invade Yugoslavia, and suddenly the friends Marko and Blacky are quite busy as black market dealers as well as freedom fighters. However, the friends turn into rivals, when both of them fall in love with the breath-taking actress Natalija. Eventually, Blacky has to hide below Belgrade in a labyrinth of bunkers, where he henceforth produces weapons with other partisans, which Marko, in return, sells to a variety of clients for an awful lot of money. At the end of the war the business threatens to stand still, but Marko has the perfect solution: He makes Blacky and his friends in the underground believe that the invasion of the city never stopped and still goes on.

Emir Kusturica won multiple awards such as the Golden Palm in Cannes with his visually stunning, monumental and solemn political grotesque, which comes across as a refreshing, politically incorrect historical epic about the multi-ethnic state of Yugoslavia. The multi-faceted and partially wild war surviving comedy has been acclaimed by the critics of our this year’s series „25-The Retrospective“ to be virtually the best movie from the whole Balkan region produced in the past 25 years. Especially enthusing is the phenomenal soundtrack provided by Goran Bregović which adds the icing to this cake of a masterpiece and makes it a true film classic.