6 - Home Movies and Cinematic Memories: Fixing the Gaze on Vukica Đilas and Tatjana Ivančić
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2022
Summary
Abstract
The remarkable films of Vukica Đilas and Tatjana Ivančić have been largely omitted from Yugoslav avant-garde film historiographies. This chapter outlines their creative trajectories within the thriving scenes of 1970s experimental and amateur filmmaking, focusing on the opportunities and limitations they faced within these milieus and relating their work to two central theoretical concepts of Yugoslav experimental cinema: the Antifilm and the fixation film. As the chapter argues, while Đilas and Ivančić were never closely associated with these theories, they nevertheless provided apt frameworks for their fascinating oeuvres as concepts carrying implicit feminist potential. Ultimately, the chapter proposes alternative understandings of women's filmmaking under socialism, away from habitual frameworks of Western “feminism.”
Keywords: Vukica Đilas; Tatjana Ivančić; women's filmmaking; amateur cinema; Yugoslavia; Antifilm and fixation film
I was no longer ashamed of anything that was mine, I had no more secrets, and that is why I could not hide them anymore.
Vukica ĐilasThe film camera is my toy; she keeps me company in the silence of nature or the sea.
Tatjana IvančićIt was said not by mere accident that even the most oppressed proletarian had someone even more oppressed than himself, and that was his wife.
Branko PrnjatIn 1976, the Belgrade film festival FEST held an international symposium titled Žena na filmu (Woman on Film). The contributions published in the conference proceedings spanned Poland, France, the United States, U.S.S.R., Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy and seemingly encompassed a broad range of topics: from the position of women in the world of art and the relationship between women and film-as-commodity to the representation of women in various national cinemas and film genres. The most interesting articles did not merely analyze the figure of woman in the (male-directed film) frame, but centered on works made by women themselves. However, these articles mainly focused on a group of by then already established directors: Alice Guy-Blache, Germaine Dulac, Leni Riefenstahl, Agnes Varda, Nadine Trintignant, Marguerite Duras, Binka Željazkova, Marta Meszaros, Larisa Shepitko, Mai Zetterling, Lina Wertmuller, Liliana Cavani, Wanda Jakubowska, Věra Chytilova, and Jeanne Moreau. In this international group of women, only one director—Soja Jovanović—was from Yugoslavia, and only two—Maya Deren and Shirley Clarke—were closely associated with experimental film.
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- Experimental Cinemas in State-Socialist Eastern Europe , pp. 151 - 174Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2022