Aleksandar Petrović

Aleksandar Petrović (1929-1994) was one of the most acclaimed and influential Yugoslav filmmakers. Born in Paris, he studied at the prestigious FAMU film school in post-war Prague before returning to Yugoslavia. He was one of the most vital figures in the so-called “Black Wave” avant-garde that emerged in the country in the 1960s and ‘70s, although his films were less directly politically contentious than those of his colleagues such as Dušan Makavejev and Želimir Žilnik. His first critical success was the war drama Three (1965), which was nominated for the Foreign Language Academy Award. In 1967, his Roma drama I Even Met Happy Gypsies won the Grand Prix at Cannes and was nominated for the Palme d’Or – which also occurred with his following feature, It Rains in My Village, based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Possessed. In 1973, Petrović was forced to leave his post at the Belgrade Film Academy after being accused of holding anti-communist views by the Yugoslav authorities; he was a founding member, in 1989, of the opposition Democratic Party of Serbia. Petrović was also an acclaimed author of articles and books on cinema.