Cinema Komunisto

Leka Konstantinovic was the personal film projectionist of Yugoslavia's President Josip Broz Tito for 32 years. Along with Yugoslav directors, film stars and studio bosses, he tells the story of how Marshall Tito (1892-1980) gave form to the post-war federal state of Yugoslavia, while at the same time setting up a productive film industry for his country. With the state supporting filmmakers, "no problem" was the standard answer for whatever a director needed - with soldiers serving their entire tour of duty as extras on war films, and even the blowing up of a real bridge to create an Oscar-nominated film. Tito followed these film shoots closely, watching one film a day in his private theater. After his break with the Soviet Union, he invited Hollywood stars to come to Yugoslavia, and soon Richard Burton, Orson Welles and Sophia Loren were commissioned to participate in massive productions, often about the heroic struggle of Tito and his partisans against the Nazis. consists of clips from over 60 feature films, some great archive footage, and the bittersweet memories of the storytellers, with plenty of funny anecdotes and remarkable details. Upon Tito's death, the entire Yugoslav film industry crumbled, and a decade later the rest of the country followed suit. Today, nothing remains but the old studio complexes, which are rotting away, and the filmed memories of a country that no longer exists.