Želimir Žilnik
From his beginnings in the lively amateur film scene of Yugoslavia in the 1960s, Želimir Žilnik has gone on to make more than fifty films, including a number of feature films and TV productions, often in the genre of docudrama. He received international recognition early on, winning the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 1969 Berlin International Film Festival for “Early Works.” In the 1970s his films encountered political opposition, and he left Yugoslavia for Germany, where he realized several independent films, including some of the earliest films dealing with the topic of guest workers.
In the 1980s, after leaving Germany—due to his films once again facing political opposition and censorship—and returning to Yugoslavia, he made numerous TV and feature films through which he portrayed early symptoms of the country’s growing social conflicts, continuing in the 1990s with films dealing with the maladies of the post-socialist transition as well as questions of migration. Many of Žilnik’s films have prophetically announced real-world events that mirror topics tackled in his work, such as the dissolution of Yugoslavia, economic transition from socialism to a neoliberal order, the annihilation of workers’ rights, and wider social erosion related to labor and migration. According to urban theorist Andy Merrifield, amateur and professional politics are in fact “political divisions that can be reclaimed and moved” like tectonic plates. Courageous amateurism is prominent in Žilnik’s films, both as a concept and as a method, and the exhibition elaborates on different facets of the potentials of shadow citizens as well as the pressures of the amateur undercurrent in emancipatory politics and artistic production.
Quoted from the press release: Želimir Žilnik: "Shadow Citizens." Edith-Russ-Haus. Oldenburg, Germany. 19 April–17 June 2018. Curated by WHW.more