Battle royale: Non-Aligned & Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes from the Labudović Reels

NAM / In a documentary diptych, Mila Turajlić examines the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement via an expansive unexplored archive of former Tito cameraman Stevan Labudović. The synopsis for Belgrade-born Mila Turajlić’s Non-Aligned & Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes from the Labudović Reels straightforwardly portrays the award-winning filmmaker’s (2017’s The Other Side of Everything, 2010’s Cinema Komunisto) latest endeavour as a «documentary diptych of two feature-length films that take us on an archival road trip through the birth of the Third World project, based on unseen 35mm materials filmed by Stevan Labudović, the cameraman of Yugoslav President Tito.» But even that ambitious description doesn’t begin to capture the true breadth and scope of this multiyear journey back in time, one which led to the self-described «documentary filmmaker, archival artivist and spoken word performer» unearthing an anti-colonialist dream that very nearly came true; duly recorded on newsreels that were «a fake reflection of a true aspiration» (as Turajlić puts it in poetic voiceover). But instead, disintegrated into history, dissolving like celluloid. Like her country itself.

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