Balkan Spy

Adapted by Dušan Kovačević from his own play and co directed with Božidar Nikolić, this Yugoslav black comedy is among the most beloved cult films in Serbian cinema. Ilija Čvorović is a retired former Stalinist who served time on Goli Otok, Yugoslavia's notorious political prison island, for his political views. When the police call him in with a routine question about his tenant Petar, a man who has returned after twenty years in Paris, that single conversation tips Ilija into obsession. Convinced Petar is an imperialist threat and an enemy of the state, he escalates from unofficial surveillance to abduction, torture and a forced confession, dragging his brother into the persecution with him. The film's bitter core is this: a man who was once a victim of state persecution is now the one carrying it out. Made four years after Tito's death, it shows how totalitarian systems destroy themselves by manufacturing invisible enemies. It won Best Screenplay at the Montreal World Film Festival and Best Film and Best Actor at Pula, and in 2016 the Yugoslav Film Archive declared it cultural heritage of great importance. Danilo Stojković's performance is regarded as the peak of his career, and the film's lines have passed into everyday speech across the Balkans. Who it's for: Fans of political satire and Eastern European black comedy. Who it's not for: Not for viewers wanting light comedy, since the film gets darker the funnier it is and ends somewhere genuinely disturbing.