The Black Bomber

Belgrade in the near future, under an authoritarian government. A radio host named Crni broadcasts openly against the order of things, and the bigger his audience gets the more uncomfortable it becomes. When his station is declared subversive and shut down he does not give up; he keeps broadcasting from a mobile studio built into the back of a pickup truck, with the police after him. Darko Bajić made the film in 1992, as Yugoslavia was breaking apart. The 1999 it describes is invented, but everything inside it is taken from the Serbia of that day, down to the closed station being modelled on a real radio. It is a film about the present in science fiction clothes. Rock music, crowds and noise all at once, and underneath it a quiet fear about where a country is heading. Dragan Bjelogrlić and Anica Dobra take the leads.