About the Author

Mila Turajlić

E-Mail: mila.turajlic@gmail.com

Website: http://www.dissimila.rs

Mila Turajlić is a documentary filmmaker whose films Cinema Komunisto and The Other Side of Everything have premiered at major film festivals (Toronto, Tribeca, IDFA) and were released in cinemas and broadcast internationally. She is a graduate of the London School of Economics and the National Film School in Belgrade, and has been a guest lecturer in Europe and the USA (Harvard University, Yale University, University of Michigan, Paris-Sorbonne University). She is writing her PhD on the use of cinema in the creation of political narratives, and is working on a documentary film about the last living cameraman of the Yugoslav Newsreels.

Contributions by Author: Mila Turajlić

Issue 4
1968
newsreels
non-aligned
solidarity performances
Yugoslavia

Re-aligning Yugoslavia

The Construction of Alterity in the Yugoslav Newsreels

During the 1960s, Filmske Novosti (the Yugoslav Newsreels) [1] played a central role in shaping the social discourse surrounding Yugoslavia’s political orientation towards the Third World. Since President Josip Broz Tito was pursuing an independent path in foreign policy, Filmske Novosti’s project entailed the construction of a new narrative that depicted solidarity rather than otherness; this narrative can be traced through a study of the newsreels. The shifting of the mode of representation of non-aligned countries to Yugoslav audiences corresponded to the political and diplomatic strategy of the Yugoslav government to build alliances with African and Asian countries. […]