The Labudovic Reels
Qumra Projects
/ Feature Documentary / Serbia, France, Qatar
Rated: This film has not been rated.
- Come back soon to see screening dates
Synopsis
Stevan Labudovic, the cameraman of Yugoslav President Tito, takes us on an archival road trip through the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement. Revealing his role in filming the Algerian revolution, he plunges us into the heart of an epic battle of images in which cinema gave voice to a decolonising world.
In an unexplored vault in Belgrade, the capital of the former Yugoslavia, lies a collection of films known as “The Labudovic reels”. On them are images of African and Asian liberation movements of the 60s and 70s. How is it that the images of these revolutions lie on another continent, forgotten in a film archive? The answer to this question takes us into the story behind the images told by the man who filmed them. Stevan Labudovic was assigned at the age of 27 to be the cameraman of Yugoslav president Tito. For more than two decades he filmed Tito’s visits to newly-independent countries. From Mali to Indonesia and the halls of the United Nations, Labudovic’s camera captured an era of politics, personality and promise. Sent on a mission by Tito to support the Algerian war of independence by providing them with images of their struggle, Stevan would play a key role in the information battle against colonial powers. The Labudovic Reels takes us on an intimate voyage through a life dedicated to the filmed image. Through the friendship that develops with the young director, the question of the role of the camera in defining a political moment comes to the fore.
About the Director
Mila Turajlić is a documentary filmmaker, visual artist and archive scholar born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Her films have screened at Toronto, Venice and Tribeca and her video installations were commissioned by international museums. Her most recent film ‘The Other Side of Everything’ was HBO Europe’s first co-production with Serbia and won 30 awards including the prestigious IDFA Award for Best Documentary Film in 2017, as well as the Grand Prix for Best historical documentary released in France in 2018. Mila’s debut feature doc, ‘Cinema Komunisto’ played at over 100 festivals and won 16 awards including the Gold Hugo and the FOCAL Award for Creative Use of Archival Footage in 2011. Her latest work is a series of archive-based video installations commissioned by MoMA in New York for their landmark exhibition on Yugoslav modernist architecture in 2018.