From the category archives:

Culture

Serbian Movie Reviews: Disturbing Is An Understatement

March 16, 2010

Remember the trailer for Serbian Movie? It seems that it was nothing and that the film itself is much more disturbing, according to comments coming from the people who saw it at SXSW premiere and who generally, liked what they saw:
“This is a film that left me feeling dirty and assaulted, a film that will [...]

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Innocence Unprotected

February 12, 2010
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Dusan Makavejev’s documentary Innocence Unprotected (Serbian: Nevinost bez zaštite) is a movie inside a movie – an interview made in 1968 with actors from the 1942 movie Innocence Unprotected, intertwined with footage from the actual movie and some news footage from that time. What is interesting about the original movie is the year and the [...]

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Tihana from Ergo and other sci-fi

January 31, 2010
Thumbnail image for Tihana from Ergo and other sci-fi

Just when James Cameron thought he will get away with plagiarism, he’s caught! Yugoslavian author Predrag Urosevic claims that his novel from 1984, Tihana iz Erga (Eng: Tihana from Ergo) served as a plot for Cameron’s Avatar. There are at least three similarities with Avatar’s plot, says Urosevic. The man comes to another forest-like planet [...]

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“A Belgrade Story”

October 7, 2009

War veterans, Roma, corrupt politicians, NGO activists, workers and shady businessmen are all involved in this musical/play describing problems of the contemporary Serbian society in the clash of false communism and false capitalism. Subtitles included, hit full screen to see them better.
Partisan Songspiel. Belgrade Story from chto delat on Vimeo.
More info about the production and [...]

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Tram number two against poor taste

September 15, 2009

Guest post by JJ Beba

An interesting promo tour was organized on Friday, 11th of September – in one of Belgrade’s trams number two. The organizer, famous rock journalist Peca Popovic, together with the Belgrade tourist organization and the City Public transportation, created a unique travel through city’s music history.
The tour started at the pier, where [...]

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Three new murals in Belgrade by Blu, M-City and Valerio Berruti

August 15, 2009

Belgrade just got three new murals by famous artist from this field. Making of murals was made under the patronage of BELEF, Belgrade music summer festival.
First, an abstract city portrait by M-City in Durmitorska street 16:

photo by Vandalog. See more detailed photo’s on M-City’s own website.
Than another one by Blu [artist most famous [...]

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Serbs vs Superstars

August 11, 2009

Digging through new Serbian folklore again. After twittering with Eniac couple of days ago about the alleged Nirvana album sticker that says “forbidden for dogs and Serbs” (mentioned here on the blog before), I found out that this is not the lone case of such hear-say urban legend, but that there are many other bands [...]

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Nick Slaughter’s documentary trailer

July 19, 2009

Here is the first glimpse of the scenes from the announced documentary about Serbia in the nineties. I mentioned this obscure documentary earlier when Rob Stewart, the director, visited Serbia couple of weeks ago. Rob played the Nick Slaughter character from the TV show Tropical Heat that became popular only in the Balkans – and [...]

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Guca festival 2009 – one trumpet to rule them all

July 19, 2009

Good news is that the entry to Brass bands trumpet festival contest in Guca 2009 will be exactly zero dinars. And that it lasts for five days and nights, starting 5th of August.

photos.de.tibo
Now for the weird news – all types of music other than trumpet/brass bands are strictly forbidden. A special music police will be [...]

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Lepa Brena concert controversy

June 12, 2009

Lepa Brena is undisputedly the biggest showbiz star from former Yugoslavia (btw, I heard on twitter that the phrase ‘former Yugoslavia’ is a pleonasm, but I can’t restrain from using it). Biggest star in a Balkan country by default means that the star’s area of expertise is folk music. What’s interesting about Lepa Brena is [...]

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Twitter Celebs from Serbia

June 8, 2009

First of all, let’s get something out of the way: the term ‘celebrity’ is difficult to define in real life, and on twitter it becomes even harder. So it basically comes down to what I personally thinks falls under a ‘celebrity’ and you are free to disagree. Further more, since Serbia is relatively a small [...]

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Brick in a Paranoid Wall

June 5, 2009

There are more things than folk music on this guy’s repertoire:

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Smoke ‘em if you <3 ‘em

April 13, 2009

Once again, a gruesome threat called the smoking ban has been lurking from the halls of Serbian assembly. The anti-smoking law is apparently almost complete and is to be adopted in near future. The smokers are panicking like never before – all the wars, sanctions, bombing, pollution, corruption and other past and present worldly problems [...]

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Trivial Heat

April 1, 2009

Back in the nineties, when there was not much to do in Serbia but watch TV, several famous western TV shows found their audience in Serbia as well: Only Fools and Horses, ‘Allo ‘Allo, Miami Vice, The Simpsons, The X Files, Tropical Heat, Beverly Hills 90210… wait, what? Tropical Heat? What the hell is that?
Wikipedia [...]

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Obojeni Program’s new album available for free download

March 13, 2009

It may not be so big international news such as Radiohead’s free album, but in terms of Serbian or ex-Yu scene, this is an important step. Obojeni Program, one of the best bands ever to emerge from Novi Sad, has just released the new album for free download

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Attention! Paznja! Achtung!

March 5, 2009

First of all, the screaming title is there just to get your attention for a somewhat important announcement – if you are linking from your site to the old Belgraded address, (belgrade.org.yu), a quick note to let you know that you are now sending your readers to nowhere – that address is officially dead as [...]

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Super Folk

February 10, 2009

You would think that turbofolkers wouldn’t really have to do this kind of stuff in order to attract more viewers – and you would probably be right.
They do this because they think it’s fun.

(they also do this because they are high on drugs [Superman/Era Ojdanic] and booze [Batman/Bora Drljaca])

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In defense of Entropa

January 17, 2009

Thanks to the Bulgarian ambassador in EU you have probably all heard of the art installation Entropa by the Czech artist David Cherny by now, and you have all probably heard that Bulgaria’s piece of the puzzle is represented by the Turkish toilet.
First of all, kudos to the Bulgarian ambassador in the EU for spreading [...]

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Cultural treasure at the Faculty of Philosophy: The Belgrade Mummy

January 13, 2009

Did you know that there is a real Egyptian mummy in Belgrade? I didn’t. No wonder, though, because there was no real effort to promote it so far, hell, there was no effort even to conserve/preserve it (what’s the appropriate expression?) properly.

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The curious case of Belgrade/Zagreb snake statue

January 8, 2009

The “Struggle” sculpture/fountain in Kalemegdan (“Borba” in Serbian) has an interesting history behind its creation.
Simeon Roksandic, the sculptor, made one statue for the great Balkan exhibition in London, in 1907. During the transport to or from London, Roskandic received the news that the ship who was carrying the sculpture is missing and that his [...]

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