Triptych of Matter and Death

Yugoslav writer and film director Živojin Pavlovic was born in Sabac, Serbia, in 1933. He studied painting at the Belgrade Academy of Applied Arts. In the early sixties, he began his filmmaking career by directing two mid-length features. In 1965, he adapted Dostoyesky’s short novel “The Double” into a feature entitled The Enemy, and in 1966, he made The Return. His next two films, The Rat’s Awakening (1967) and When I’m Dead and White (1968) drew attention both within Yugoslavia and abroad. In 1969, The Ambush was deemed ideologically controversial, and though it was not banned, it never received an export visa. In 1970, he made Red Grain Stalks and began teaching filmmaking at Belgrade’s Film School. Meanwhile, Pavlovic had also become an established novelist. However, his fame did not prevent him from being banned from teaching, his films accused of having “a pernicious effect on youth”, his teaching methods of being “negative and pessimistic”. After three years of silence, he was back in filmmaking again. His characters are often simple people, confronted by the cruelty of the world around them, a world where dreamers and idealists are soon done away with by those who can adapt and keep going in a merciless struggle for life. —Thessaloniki Film Festival