SERBIA, YEAR ZERO

A soul-searching, first-person glimpse into the havoc that Slobodan Milosevic wrought on Yugoslavia in the 1990s, SERBIA YEAR ZERO begins on October 5, 2000, the day after Milosevic's fall, as huge crowds burn the state television building in Belgrade and other symbols of the regime. The film poses the questions: Why did this happen? How was Serbian Fascism born? Is one man to blame or are we all responsible?, but does not attempt to answer them. “The film is content with becoming a kind of inventory of the horrors unfolding inside the heads of my compatriots, inside the heads of people close to me, and, finally, inside my own head. It also serves one useful mission: it saves from oblivion the things we would rather sweep under the carpet,” says Markovic. Using actual news footage, excerpts from fictional films and newly shot footage of his people and country, Markovic injects the film with bitterness and anger, leavened by irony and self-effacing humor, juxtaposing odds and ends, people and events, trips to Bosnia and Paris, re-enactments and reconstructions of things that actually happened. In one scene, a woman, stranger to Markovic, warns him that he is being investigated for high treason, a crime punishable by death. The filmmaker had long been a target of Milosevic's for his outspoken views. A cinematic essay and a political gesture, SERBIA YEAR ZERO is also the work of a great artist. (In Serbian with English subtitles)