Original subtitles

As a child, I used to go to Yugoslavia.

The coastline, the sea, Belgrade, that was my Yugoslavia.

I remember catching octopus with my bare hands in the Adriatic.

I remember the islands’ ragged rocks.

I remember the howling jackals and forest fires I’ve never seen.

I remember the sound of the fishing boats and the gas lamps at night.

The surface of the sea after sardine fishing.

I remember the ferries with their strange names, like Tintoretto,

which I only understood later.

I remember needing a Yugoslav passport to go to Lastovo,

and that I visited a military submarine.

I remember the 2-dinar slot machines of the hotel Argentina in Dubrovnik,

and the Stradun clock.

I remember the Duga playmate and her breasts.

And Vucko, the mascot of the winter games in Sarajevo.

I remember the smell of heating oil in the streets of Belgrade,

and watching President Tito’s funeral on French TV.

I remember bank notes worth millions of dinars.

I discovered the building of the Jugoslavija in 2005,

as I was rekindling my contact with this city

and with a country that I had not visited since my childhood.

Yugoslavia was no longer

but the Jugoslavija still stood.

The hotel had been privatised

and was about to close for renovation works.

It was as if the building sent me back to my own memory,

and, at the same time, to a collective memory,

an experience shared by a country that had vanished,

my mother’s country.

My mother left Yugoslavia in the mid-60s

to join her future Swiss husband.

She left at the best of times, with her experiences of youth

and her childhood memories.

As a child, I held a Yugoslav passport,

and I carry a strange nostalgia for a country where I never lived,

like a mythological place, an origin, a lost kingdom.

Like something we’ll never find again

and yet that is part of us.

For a decade, I came here with near-religious regularity.

I filmed and filmed again these rooms and walls,

convinced that witnessing what they were to become

would help me regain a hold on that history.

Filming to retain.

To retain and regain.

Here, there is what I see and what I project.

What is real or imagined.

What was and what is.

What are your earliest memories

of this country that was once called Yugoslavia.

I imagine that after the war

as Belgrade was heavily bombed...

Was the post-war landscape still present?

The post-war landscape, no.

I probably didn’t realise

the severity of the disaster, of the tragedy.

I remember the ruins

right next to the 19th century house

where we lived in the centre of Belgrade,

drawing us, the street children, to dig around and play.

It was, of course, strictly forbidden,

as we had no idea what was still lying there.

But it was intriguing.

There was the “Dom Armije”, the Army House,

just opposite our home.

Whenever there was a summit meeting,

and there were many events involving high-ranking officers,

a soldier would come to our home.

it was a communal apartment,

before they became fashionable,

we had no choice, Belgrade was largely destroyed.

Each family had a room

that looked out onto the street, therefore well-lit,

and on the famous “Dom Armije”, the Army House.

The building served that purpose, even before the war.

So, an armed soldier

would come and sit next to my bed.

My parents sent me to bed, it was time to sleep,

and the soldier would stay until the meeting was over,

with his rifle, held like a walking stick,

to stand guard and prevent attacks.

It was strange at first, but I got used to it.

Whenever the neighbourhood was closed,

for the arrival of political or military dignitaries,

I knew I would go to bed with a soldier standing guard.

I must’ve been 7 or 8 back then.

It’s one of my memories of that time.

My parents didn’t explain, it was just like that.

Then came “Radna Akcija”, when we were older.

It was a symbol of Yugoslavia, it happened all over the country.

This was useful, communal work, which we enjoyed a lot.

A bit like the scouts, but more politicised.

We liked it because it was our first way out of home.

With other youths, boyfriends, some of them a bit older,

some flirting, our first flutters...

It was work though, because we were building,

filling a canal on the site that would later become

the “Ada Ciganlija” sports centre next to Belgrade.

It was a commitment of dogmatic proportions.

We were committed to our future, our country.

It happened only in socialist or communist countries,

and it was happening all over Yugoslavia.

Unless I’m mistaken, the 400 km Zagreb-Belgrade motorway

was then called, imagine how ironic...

If you mention it to a driver today, he’ll know what you mean.

It was called “Put Bratstva i Jedinstva”, the road of Brotherhood and Unity.

It was highly symbolic.

And it was built by young men and women

who volunteered, not professionals, but working under professionals.

It was a project in which the young took an active part.

There was also the Šamac-Sarajevo railway line.

The same happened in Bosnia. There were similar actions.

The country was so destroyed and ruined,

it was impossible to have it done by professionals.

It had a significant symbolic value.

We were keen. I was keen.

I have photos at home, I’ll show you.

My mother was “keen” because she was young,

but also because she had no choice,

because they had to rebuild a war-torn country,

and it had to be done with and by the people.

Such was the ideology, such was the belief at the time.

With this scene staged by State propaganda,

a country was being built, and with it, an identity,

a feeling of belonging, of a shared history.

It all came under Tito’s slogan

“Bratstva i Jedinstva”, Brotherhood and Unity.

A post-war ideal to unite the peoples,

to level out historic, cultural and religious differences.

The idea that nothing belongs to anyone

and that everything belongs to everybody,

the people, the worker, the young, the old,

with the authoritarian father figure of the nation watching over you.

It was the vision of a country that had defeated Nazi Germany,

and stood up to Stalin,

a country that could only exist in opposition to dominant blocs,

by choosing a third way, an alternative,

like the destiny of a nation and a people on its way to modernity.

The Jugoslavija building was part, in the late 40s,

of an ambitious urbanism project,

“Novi Beograd” a modern utopia,

at first realised only in the form of a housing estate.

The building remained unfinished for nearly 20 years,

until Tito decided, in the mid-60s,

to turn it into a grand State-run hotel.

The authoritarianism of the beginnings had relaxed a bit

and the country, serving as a buffer to the USSR,

had to find new alliances in the West,

and with non-aligned countries.

The biggest hotel of the Balkans

would therefore serve as a showcase for the country,

by welcoming tourists and businessmen, celebrities and heads of state.

A costly and plush display that the ordinary citizen

had no access to,

but could nevertheless admire from a distance,

maybe feeling some pride

in the manner in which he was being represented.

There is the greater history, that commands,

and the lesser history, of those who suffer, the people.

This is what the old keys look like.

Are you filming this?

- Have you started filming? - Yes...

Here are the flags... Colombian flag.

It still works.

Hotel Jugoslavija was the biggest hotel of the Balkans,

the grandest of its era.

We had prestigious guests, VIPs.

I was very excited to work here,

delighted to have found a position in this establishment.

I’ve seen many celebrities,

The presidents of the US, of Russia, of Kazakhstan,

and many others who stayed here

when they were in Belgrade.

Artists, athletes, bankers.

Everyone came to hotel Jugoslavija.

People from every Yugoslav republic

worked at the hotel Jugoslavija.

Without exception.

There were Albanians, Muslims, Croats, Macedonians,

every nationality was represented.

Only your skills counted,

and, I have to admit, your political compatibility.

Back then, they considered your membership to the Communist Party,

or your participation in youth and sports organisations...

It was like that.

They looked at your parents, their jobs.

There was a personnel commission that examined candidacies

and chose applicants.

Then you had to go before a Workers Council

that made the final decision.

I was part of several administrative bodies in the days of self-management.

I was the vice-president of the Workers Council,

I took part in many important decisions.

My voice counted in everything that happened

during that time, between 1980 and 2006.

We made decisions relating to commercial strategies,

the amount of salaries, employees.

I must say that ours was a tight-knit collective.

It was struck by disaster with the bombings of 1999.

On the 7th of May, 1999, hotel Jugoslavija was bombed.

At that moment we were all united.

We were united before, but then we really came together

to work on rebuilding the hotel.

That’s the main difference between then and now.

Before, we had sporting competitions

involving employees from various companies.

We made new acquaintances, new friends...

The practice was encouraged by companies working in a given sector.

We had friendly exchanges with hotel Esplanade in Zagreb,

the Lev in Ljubljana, the Bistrica in Jahorina.

Between 50 and 100 of us would visit them, and then

their employees would come to us.

All expenses were paid for our employees and theirs.

The company was our home.

It’s no longer like that.

Now, the head of a private company is never going to release funds

to send a delegation to another hotel for 3 or 4 days,

nor welcome a delegation from another hotel.

The practice has ended, and people don’t interact as much.

There were also competitions for hotel employees from Yugoslavia,

organised in Portorož, Herceg Novi, Kopaonik, Ljubljana.

Those few days were perfect.

It was the best Yugoslavia had to offer in that field.

Master chefs, waiters would share their skills,

learning from one another.

That type of gathering doesn’t exist nowadays,

nor do those friendly exchanges between employees.

“ Yugoslav ”, the Southern Slavic people.

A name that sounds like that of a tribe,

a vanished species.

My mother once told me that when she argued with my father,

she’d reproach him that he hadn’t married her,

but had only married a certain idea of Socialism.

As if her husband only saw in her the image of an ideal.

As if this building also sent me back to the image of an ideal.

An image that allows me to believe, but prevents me from seeing.

Although I know,

I can’t stop believing.

I searched for footage of the Jugoslavija in its heyday,

for footage of celebrities and heads of state.

All I found was an advertising film in German,

dating from the early 70s,

promoting the country through the hotel,

or the hotel through the country.

A film that mixes advertising and propaganda,

tourism and politics.

I also found these scenes from a fiction film,

where the hotel is the backdrop to a harsh criticism of power,

a film that was banned by the regime for a long time,

as if fiction could’ve taken precedence over reality.

It was exciting and instructive.

A fine ending, as my dad used to say.

Dad was killed. He died as he lived.

You reap what you sow, and so forth...

You’re pulling my leg, absolutely no truth in it.

Gangsters only die in old films.

It’s the opposite in life. So, to summarise:

justice exists only in films. In life... a happy end?

I hope we will meet again.

I am your future.

I often hear that life was better before.

I’ve also heard that today’s generations

are paying the price of their parents’ generation,

that the country had lived beyond its means,

that it had been disconnected from its own reality.

Did this country exist only artificially?

Did it exist only because it had left the Soviet bloc?

Did it exist only through the authoritarianism and opportunism of its president

and his skill at adapting to circumstances?

Did it exist only because the world was divided in two?

Was there really nothing worth inheriting from that Yugoslavia?

Where shall I sit?

They don’t know?

Tell me when you’re ready.

- Can we start? - Hang on...

Comrade Tito has died.

The Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist League

made the announcement this evening to the working class,

to the workers and citizens, to the peoples and nations

of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

I wasn’t that sad when he died.

He had many happy years, he lived a good life.

Still, if he’d ruled a bit longer, we would’ve had a bit more...

How can I explain... the country could’ve lasted a bit longer.

But when you think about it, we all die one day,

no one is born to live forever.

Honestly, I wasn’t afraid the country would break-up after Tito’s death.

I thought that...

it was in the interest of every republic to stay in the Federation.

I didn’t think that Tito’s death would play a role in the break-up.

We were on guard duty here, there was a general mobilization,

it was exaggerated,

because people were constantly on their guard

against some alleged external danger.

But it wasn’t the case.

If we’d come under attack, we wouldn’t have been divided.

We would’ve stayed united.

But since no one attacked us, we imploded on our own.

Even then I didn’t believe in communism.

That is to say, at first I did believe in it.

It was propaganda.

They said that our self-managed society

and our socialist system were ideal,

whereas the Soviet system was rigid, it was bad,

and the western system exploited the working classes

while the rights of our workers were being upheld.

At first, I believed it was true.

Later, however, in practice,

when the law on Associated Labour, the “ZUR”, was passed,

directors lost a significant part of their powers

to self-managing bodies within the company.

We found ourselves powerless.

We couldn’t use our skills to do anything,

unless the entire company was involved in one way or another.

Through the Workers Council, or general assemblies

in which everyone took part.

It slowed down the process, and by the time decisions were made,

the ship had sailed, and the idea was shelved.

Everything took a very long time,

and there was no perspective in sight.

And in the workers’ minds there was always

the notion of State property, we called it social property,

and of individual property.

In this conflict of interest, individual needs always came first.

If one could profit from the system, as we say,

one did so without hesitation.

No one is perfect, and no system is ideal.

This self-managed society was founded on an ideal,

as if personal property and state, I mean social,

were at the same level.

It’s impossible, personal interests will always come first.

That’s why the system didn’t work.

Some people were like this, but they were the minority.

I had stopped going to Yugoslavia when it went to war with itself.

The passport of my childhood had turned into something foreign,

some suddenly impossible form of identification.

The words that had accompanied my mother’s childhood

were to be diverted, made meaningless,

and yet I still want to believe in those words today.

Or at least believe in the idea I have of them.

Unity,

brotherhood,

collectivity,

self-management,

non-alignment.

The words are not to blame.

I once read that the founding myth of the region

dates from more than 6 centuries ago, when the regent went

to fight a battle that he knew he would lose.

Like a destiny, stronger than anything, but promised to a sure defeat.

A warrior’s ideal, enabling the people to stand up to the others

but that ends up pitting itself against itself.

Tito’s Yugoslavia is the fruit of struggle, hard work,

and of the love of the nations and nationalities of Yugoslavia.

Today, as Yugoslavia faces many challenges,

we must all raise our voices,

awaken our hearts, use our intelligence

and join forces to protect our country.

Yugoslavia was created

by the glorious revolution of Yugoslav communists,

of the working classes and the peoples of Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia will not fall

at the negotiating table, as our enemies hope.

Yugoslavia, born from a great fight,

will be defended with a great fight.

Long live socialist Yugoslavia, our homeland.

Long live the Socialist Republic of Serbia, free and united.

Long live Belgrade, capital of our country,

forever open to all brave men and progressive ideas.

Hail the courage we have always shown in our struggle

for freedom and justice.

Long live our comrades gathered here today

at this meeting for brotherhood and unity,

for Yugoslavia and for new and better days.

The 90s came upon us in an unexpected manner.

No one expected that our disintegration could happen.

When it all started, first with Slovenia,

then in Croatia, the peacemakers started coming to the hotel.

The European Community sent

one of the first delegations to soothe us.

Back then, I was in charge of the Djerdap restaurant,

and I had a very good opinion of the EEC.

Then, all sorts of other guests started coming to the hotel.

I’m talking about people on the fringe of the law.

They were more numerous than in the previous decade.

It was a good time for criminals who came here.

There were people who were well-known in criminal circles

who came to meet at the hotel.

As for me, I had little contact with them.

I had other duties:

grand receptions, congress meetings, balls,

dances, as they are called, seminaries.

I never had much contact with them,

but my colleagues downstairs had many problems.

Those people didn’t spend much time upstairs.

When the Bosnian war started,

men from the UNPROFOR and the United Nations

arrived at the hotel.

They stayed for a while and then they left.

Only we and our so-called guests remained.

You could see guns on the chairs.

There were shots fired in the hotel,

and when a wedding was celebrated, weapons were also around.

There was even a security service in charge of confiscating weapons

for that kind of event.

When I tell you that Arkan had rented the hotel,

not all of it, just the section with the pool and the casino,

to turn it into an establishment for the elite,

I think it says it all.

What could I hope for, coming back here after so many years?

What had I really inherited from this country?

Maybe my Yugoslavia had never actually existed.

Maybe I see the dead where they are not,

and don’t want to see them where they really are.

Since I started coming here,

the building has changed hands three times.

There have been three transformation projects,

each time grander, bigger, more luxurious,

and the country has changed name three times.

Yesterday a Yugoslav,

today a Serb.

There has been a symbolic destruction,

a physical destruction, a moral destruction,

and when people talk about reconstruction and investment,

I continue to see destruction,

a destruction of values and meaning.

What is there to remember or to keep?

Are you alive?

Get out of here.

Come here.

They say that the Jugoslavija was shelled because

Arkan, an infamous criminal with ties to the power,

had owned a casino there,

because a minister had attended, or because

the hotel could’ve been used by the federal army

in case of a land invasion by NATO forces.

The bombs that fell here helped

bring down a criminal regime that dreamed of a great Serbia,

they destroyed the symbols and tools of power

of a country that had already ceased to exist.

But by paving the way to a new post-socialist economy,

they also took part in the process of erasing

a socialist past, an entire history.

The grandeur and misery of capitalism that has nothing to sell apart

from the ruins of its own history.

What can grow in ruins,

on a moral wasteland?

I would like to take the opportunity to extend my special thanks

to the National Unity government of the Serb Republic,

without whom this work would never have started, let alone be completed.

I would also like to take the opportunity,

and I think we could never say this enough,

to thank the Yugoslav army, our Ministry of Interior,

for all they’ve done during the aggression by NATO forces,

and, later on, for the renovation works

and particularly, for having revived the tourist industry

and allowed hotel Jugoslavija to run successfully.

Following the bombings, hotel Jugoslavija,

which had a staff of 400 to 450, was closed.

And the Metropol hotel, which wasn’t even shelled, struggled

to function because of UN sanctions.

We managed to secure a loan to restore

a part of the Jugoslavija and make it operational.

But we lacked the means to restore the kitchen and restaurants.

In order to overcome this dire financial situation

and return the hotel to an operational state,

we made a decision that seemed perfectly sound in those days:

we joined forces with a powerful company,

an insurance brokerage firm, called Dunav-Belgrade.

According to our merger contract, they were meant to

invest five million dollars, sorry deutschmarks,

in the renovation of the Jugoslavija, and one million for the Metropol.

Unfortunately, after the changes in 2000, I left my job

and Dunav failed to fulfil their commitments

to the Jugoslavija and the Metropol.

After some time, Dunav gained control of the hotels

without having any right to.

They were sold as real estate.

If memory serves, and I hope you’ll forgive inaccuracies,

the Jugoslavija was sold for 33 million, and the Metropol went for 26 million,

- which was a good price, but, as I said, secured illegally -

since the buyer didn’t have to invest in the hotels’ refurbishment.

Dunav therefore pocketed significant amounts,

having failed to fulfil any of the clauses of the contracts that had been signed.

Back then I sued Dunav personally.

Unfortunately, owing to events and the political situation of the country,

the dispute was never settled.

The complaint was cancelled despite contractual elements

that showed clearly to anyone concerned

that Dunav had failed to comply with the contract’s clauses,

and had therefore no right to sell the hotels.

I’d like to add something else.

I can now say that I have a good life.

I enjoy a good status in society, a good income and

if you consider my financial situation, and my house,

I live better than in the 80s and 90s.

I live better now,

but that’s not the case for 99% of the population.

I would give everything I own just to see peaceful

relations among people restored, as they were before.

I have nothing to add.

The fall of the old masters doesn’t generally herald a new era,

it simply heralds an era of new masters.

I realise that I came here, all those years, a bit like

one visits a cemetery,

with a strange feeling

that the dead still have something to say about their history.

I had mourning to do.

Mourning I couldn’t do as a child.

Mourning of ideals,

mourning of images to believe in.

How can I believe?

What can I believe in today?

Boris! Boris! Boris!

Thank you all for coming.

Thank you for supporting a magnificent, beautiful idea

of a Serbia within Europe, that cares for its people,

of a Serbia that fights for a better life.

Serbia is the country of our union,

not the country of our conflicts and disagreements.

Serbia must never, never I repeat,

never become the country of war,

the country of destruction, of isolation, of hatred.

A country where people are persecuted because they think differently,

a country where people are killed because they hold a different opinion,

where people are discriminated against

because of their religious or ethnic differences.

Serbia is a beautiful country, a proud country,

a country turned to the future, the best country of the Balkans.

That is Serbia.

Our people, the Serbian people,

want to live alongside all European peoples,

and to resolve its national issue

in this European house,

under a European roof, in a European homeland.

Call me when you need me

From this hole between centuries

So that together we can make our dreams real

Alone, where the worlds meet

Give me a sign

Strong enough

Give me strength and courage

What no one else can, only you can

Show me that playing is a gift

That we have never lost

Without importance, something important

through which we fell in love instantly

Give me a sign

Strong enough...

They talk of democratic process, of transition,

of Europe and of growth,

but I still have the feeling that a right has been denied,

the right of workers, the right of a people,

to something far greater than mere production means.

It’s as if the mirage of ownership had only

served to better dispossess them.

But there was the crisis, there was nationalism,

there was an embargo, and there was a war.

In the meantime, Europe was being built.

A Europe that maybe had no further need for Yugoslavia,

at least not in that form.

It’s as if all notion of communal life, of shared ideals needed to be destroyed.

It’s as if commercial values and moral values were one and the same.

The Jugoslavija will continue to evolve towards new horizons.

And if one day it finally seems transformed, with its glass towers,

malls and luxury apartments,

maybe I’ll stop coming,

or maybe I’ll come like one visits an old friend who’s changed,

and whose story we are one of the few to know,

even if he’s forgotten it himself.

What a strange feeling, to no longer be bound by one’s own history...

English adaptation: Alex Downing Subtitles: www.c-sideprod.ch