Lordan Zafranović: The Trilogy

Croatia during World War II: Dubrovnik, a Dalmatian island, a province in Herzegovina. These beautiful locations form the backdrop of Lordan Zafranović’s film trilogy – one of the most important (anti)war statements in the history of Yugoslav cinema. However, this is far from the traditional partisan war film that characterized the region’s cinema for decades. Zafranović goes beyond its conventions, creating works of European stature, comparable to the films of Italian modernists such as Visconti, Bertolucci, and Pasolini.

His work is deeply critical of nationalism and historical distortion – particularly when it comes to the crimes committed by Croatian collaborators, the Ustaše. In the 1990s, as newly formed states built their national identities on myths and selective memory, Zafranović’s films became politically inconvenient. He became the target of attacks and was forced into exile, relocating to Paris and Prague. Today, in an era of increasing historical revisionism and pressure to adopt “comfortable” interpretations of the past, Zafranović’s trilogy resonates even more powerfully. This is cinema that refuses to let us look away – cinema that reminds us memory is not a resource, but a responsibility.