The Yugoslav Black Wave

The Yugoslav Black Wave

Home to one of the most distinctive of all Eastern Bloc filmmaking traditions, Yugoslavia produced a rich cinematic heritage – including the radical subversion of the “Black Wave” movement of the 1960s and ‘70s, which critiques the post-war socialist state from within. Explore our collection of Black Wave titles, including important works by Aleksandar Petrović and Dušan Makavejev.

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The Yugoslav Black Wave
  • Love Affair, or The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator

    Movie + 2 extras

    Directed by Dušan Makavejev • 1967 • Yugoslavia

    This gleefully subversive, formally skittish, and surprisingly moving oddity from the inimitable Dušan Makavejev is a high point of the Yugoslav Black Wave. Centred around the doomed romance between a Hungarian switchboard operator Izabela (Eva Ras...

  • I Even Met Happy Gypsies

    Movie + 3 extras

    Directed by Aleksandar Petrović • 1967 • Yugoslavia

    One of the first films from Eastern Europe to explore the lives of the Roma in sympathetic detail, and to cast Romani-speaking Roma in order to do so, Aleksandar Petrović’s Cannes-winning classic builds a complex and humanistic narrative out of...

  • Three
    Movie + 2 extras

    Three

    Movie + 2 extras

    Directed by Aleksandar Petrović • 1965 • Yugoslavia

    The first mature masterpiece from a figurehead of Yugoslav film, Three established Aleksandar Petrović at the forefront of the so-called Black Wave movement. Across a triptych of stories, we follow a soldier named Miloš (iconic actor Velimir “B...

  • Man Is Not a Bird
    Movie + 1 extra

    Man Is Not a Bird

    Movie + 1 extra

    Directed by Dušan Makavejev • 1964 • Yugoslavia
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    The debut feature from Yugoslav cinema’s greatest iconoclast, Man Is Not a Bird announced Dušan Makavejev to the world and paved the way for the Balkan nation’s Black Wave movement. Se...

  • Breakfast with the Devil

    Movie + 2 extras

    Directed by Miroslav Antić • 1971 • Yugoslavia

    Acclaimed poet turned filmmaker Miroslav Antić made his indelible contribution to the Yugoslav Black Wave with this apocalyptic tale of love among the ruins of war and natural disaster. Set in 1947, the film captures life in a Vojvodina village duri...

  • The Tough Ones
    Movie + 2 extras

    The Tough Ones

    Movie + 2 extras

    Directed by Miodrag Popović • 1968 • Yugoslavia

    Renowned painter turned filmmaker Miodrag Popović made his indelible contribution to the Yugoslav Black Wave with this harsh but humanist take on the psychic scars of war. Two brothers, Isidor (Jovan Janićijević-Burduš) and Gvozden (Danilo ‘Bata’ S...