Film Screenings

Waterfront: A Post-Ottoman, Post-Socialist Story

2020, Serbian/English with English subtitles
Directed by Milos Jovanovic
Screening Time: 53 minutes

Introduced by Milos Jovanovic (UCLA)

Since 2015, the UAE and Serbia have collaborated on the 2-billion EUR Belgrade Watefront project, transforming a dilapidated post-industrial neighborhood into luxury apartments, marinas, hotels, and shopping malls. Representing ascendance to European modernity, authorities say the project completes Serbia’s modernization which began under Ottoman rule. For displaced residents, the brutal transformation heralds a future of economic inequality. What does it mean to call upon de-Ottomanization in the era of postsocialism? What visions of civilization and progress does that bring? Whose stories does it erase? Upon whose backs is the waterfront made? And what is to be done?

Thursday, November 12
4:00-5:45pm
Palmer House Hilton

Soldiers of Song

2024, Ukrainian, Russian, English with English subtitles
Directed by Ryan Smith
Screening time: 89 minutes

Introduced by Tetyana Shlikhar (U of Notre Dame)

Soldiers of Song is a powerful documentary that follows Ukraine’s most iconic musicians as they navigate the chaos of Russian aggression, transforming their art into a healing power for a nation under siege. Featuring prominent artists such as Slava Vakarchuk (Okean Elzy) and Andriy Khlyvnyuk (Boombox), the film captures their deeply personal journeys of resilience and defiance. Through intimate interviews and gripping performances, the production weaves together stories of sacrifice—from a musician serving as a drone operator to an orchestra conductor recounting the destruction of the Mariupol Theater—showcasing how music has become an anthem of unity and a beacon of courage in Ukraine’s darkest hour.

Thursday, November 12
7:30 -9:30pm
Palmer House Hilton

The Revenant Project: Persons, Places, Things

2025, English, Bosnian with English subtitles
Directed by Tomislav Žaja
Screening time: 27 minutes

Introduced by Jeremy Francis Walton (U of Rijeka (Croatia))
Q&A moderated by Jeremy Francis Walton, (U of Rijeka (Croatia))

The Revenant Project – Persons, Places, Things explores the intertwined afterlives of the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires through footage in Istanbul, Sarajevo, and Vienna. A late Ottoman diplomat and artist who spanned civilizational and political divides, a street corner that was the site of a world-shattering assassination, and a gigantic bell cast from abandoned Ottoman cannons following the second Siege of Vienna organize the film’s itinerary. By reading these persons, places, and things against the grain, the film illustrates the ongoing entanglements of these bygone empires in the Balkans and beyond.

Friday, November 13
1:30 -3:15 pm
Palmer House Hilton

Belarusian Night of Shorts

2021-2025, Belarusian, Russian with English subtitles
Screening time: 90 minutes

Introduced by Sasha Razor (UC Santa Barbara)
Q&A by Volha Isakava (Central Washington U)

Belarusian Night of Shorts is a showcase of award-winning short films by Belarusian filmmakers selected by the Red Heather Awards. Red Heather is the only Belarusian film critics’ award, currently operating in exile. Red Heather champions work by contemporary Belarusian filmmakers and is dedicated to promotion and visibility of Belarusian cinema. The Night of Shorts program includes animated, feature, and documentary films that reflect cinema’s response to the watershed events of 2020 – the mass protests that rocked Belarus and their aftermath. The showcase represents a unique opportunity to get acquainted with the work of contemporary Belarusian filmmakers.

Friday, November 13
3:30-5:15pm
Palmer House Hilton

Vera Dreams of the Sea

2021, Albanian with English subtitles
Direct by Kaltrina Krasniqi
Screening time: 87 minutes

Introduced by Lum Çitaku (Kosovo Cinematography Center (Kosovo)
Q&A moderated by Eralda L Lameborshi (East Texas A&M U)

Set in contemporary Kosova, Vera Dreams of the Sea centers on a woman navigating inheritance law, patriarchal tradition, and institutional indifference following her husband’s sudden death. Through Vera’s struggle to assert legal personhood within systems that were never designed to recognize her, the film maps the continuities of extraction across Kosova’s layered histories: Ottoman, Yugoslav, and capitalist, each organizing itself around the taking from those with the least power. That Kosova has willingly embraced market integration makes this extraction no less legible; if anything, the film suggests, the violence is harder to name when it arrives wearing the language of opportunity and reform. Vera’s fight to hold onto what is hers becomes a meditation on what states promise and what they take from women, from the poor, from the stateless and the newly-stated alike. As a work of Kosovar cinema, the film carries additional resonance: Kosova’s own sovereignty makes it a particularly charged site for reflecting on statehood, imperial inheritance, and the question of who the state is ultimately for. Vera Dreams of the Sea invites reflection on the quiet forms of resistance that emerge when institutions — old and new — extract more than they protect.

Friday, November 13
7:30-9:30 pm
Palmer House Hilton

Unknown Evgeny Bauer

1915/1916, Russian/Italian with English subtitles
Directed by Evgeny Bauer
Screening time: 40 minutes

Introduced by Anna Kovalova (U of Pittsburgh)
Q&A moderated by Yuri Tsivian (U of Chicago)

Two newly discovered films by the canonical pre-revolutionary film director Evgeny Bauer will be screened: the salon melodrama Human Abysses (1915) and the sensational melodrama The Adventures of Shpeyer and His “Jacks of Hearts” Gang (1915). Human Abysses has recently been identified at the Šiaulių „Aušros“ muziejus in Lithuania and restored at the George Eastman Museum, while The Adventures of Shpeyer has been discovered at the Cineteca di Bologna.

Saturday, November 14
2:00 – 3:45 pm
Palmer House Hilton

(Un)Known Holocaust

2026, Ukrainian with English subtitles
Directed by Les Kasyanov and Yurii Kaparulin
Screening time: 42 minutes

Introduced by Yurii Kaparulin (U of Michigan / Kherson State U (Ukraine)) and Oleksiy Kasyanov (Lviv Regional Council (Ukraine))
Q&A moderated by Jeffrey Veidlinger, U of Michigan

This documentary explores the history of World War II and the Holocaust in Ukraine. While rooted in a regional perspective, the film addresses a much broader phenomenon of mass violence and its legacy.

Saturday, November 14
4:00-5:45pm
Palmer House Hilton