Kozara

In June 1942 the Germans and their collaborators decide to clear out the partisans based in the woods of Mount Kozara in northern Bosnia. They encircle the mountain and begin a mopping up operation. Far behind in weapons and in numbers, the partisans must protect not only themselves but the thousands of civilians who have taken refuge on the mountain. The film gives the fighting not as a display of heroism but as the condition of the crowd caught under the encirclement; the true weight lies not with those fighting but with the people behind them. The account set out from a real operation and came to be counted among the best known works of Yugoslav war cinema. Bert Sotlar and Milena Dravic appear in Veljko Bulajic’s hundred and twenty four minute Yugoslav film, completed in 1962.