Queering the Yugoslav Fifties

Speaker: Nebojša Jovanović

In this lecture, Nebojša Jovanović draws on his long career exploring queer aspects of Yugoslav cinema, focusing on the films of the 1950s to complicate the notion of stable identities (whether straight or gay) in this under-examined corner of film history. Coming before the much more widely known and celebrated “Black Wave” in Yugoslav film, works from the first 15 years of the country’s cinema have much to tell us about the formation of sexual identities onscreen.

About the speaker:

Nebojša Jovanović is an assistant professor at the University of Sarajevo in the Production Department of the Academy of Performing Arts. He edited the monograph Hajrudin Krvavac (2019), a volume on one of the most popular Yugoslav directors of the socialist era. His essays on film theory and history have been published in edited volumes and film magazines and journals. Since 2019, he has been project manager of “Talents Sarajevo”, the talent development program of the Sarajevo Film Festival.