Variola Vera

In 1972 a patient is brought from Kosovo to Belgrade. He fell ill on the way back from a pilgrimage and the doctors cannot diagnose him. By the time they understand, it is too late: the disease is smallpox, thought to have been wiped out in Europe. The hospital is closed and everyone inside is put in quarantine. Once the doors are locked, the real subject is not the disease but what people do to each other. Goran Marković's film rests on a real epidemic: in 1972 in Yugoslavia a hundred and seventy-five people caught smallpox and thirty-five died. It was the last outbreak in Europe. The film stands between horror and satire, and its real target is the bureaucracy: nobody wants to take responsibility, everyone is waiting for word from above. Rade Šerbedžija and Erland Josephson are in the cast.