The Weight of Chains

Dec 17, 2010

2h 5m

★ 7.3

Overview

The Weight of Chains is a Canadian documentary film that takes a critical look at the role that the US, NATO and the EU played in the tragic breakup of a once peaceful and prosperous European state - Yugoslavia. The film, bursting with rare stock footage never before seen by Western audiences, is a creative first-hand look at why the West intervened in the Yugoslav conflict, with an impressive roster of interviews with academics, diplomats, media personalities and ordinary citizens of the former Yugoslav republics. This film also presents positive stories from the Yugoslav wars - people helping each other regardless of their ethnic background, stories of bravery and self-sacrifice.

Genres

Documentary

History

Production Companies

Malagurski Cinema

The Weight of Chains Trailers

Cast

himself

Rade Aleksic

himself

James Bissett

himself

Michel Chossudovsky

Self

Michael Parenti

The carefree and somewhat idyllic life of a ten year old boy named Marijan is violently interrupted when war ravages his small town of Dalj and his families closest friends and neighbors turn on them purely because they are Croatian. Marijan is forced to witness and experience things an adult would have an incredibly difficult time dealing with. He is nevertheless faced with the inexplicably horrid events war brings out in people. The story centers on a present day Marijan- now the very successful owner of a wood manufacturing business. On one random day a man walks into his store and all of the memories he wishes he could long forget come flooding back, forcing him to relive them. Despite his immense hardships, Marijan lives on in forgiveness, always seeking the positives that lay in the future rather than rehashing and remaining in the past.

7.4

The Collaborator

Jan 1, 2007

During the conflict in the former Yugoslavia many soldiers were convinced to kill fellow citizens including friends and relatives in the name of patriotism. The Kolaborator follows the story of Goran, 24, a promising young soccer player who is forced to become a soldier. Goran goes from being a talented athlete to an executioner virtually overnight. Following orders, Goran lines up civilians, shoots them and drags them into mass graves. Justifying his role as a protector of his people, Goran becomes increasingly detached from the task until his soccer coach and life-long friend, Asim, is led in front of him. As a familiar face stands defeated before him, Goran must reconsider his actions and choose between his own life and that of his dear friend.

7.4

Ulysses' Gaze

Oct 12, 1995

An exiled filmmaker finally returns to his home country where former mysteries and afflictions of his early life come back to haunt him once more.

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0.0

City of Splendour

Jan 25, 2013

A documentary about punk and subculture scene of Pula, Croatia from 1978 to 1991, the city that gave birth to one of the most vivid punk and alternative rock scenes in former Yugoslavia, despite having population of just over 60,000 residents.

0.0

The Long Road Through Balkan History

Jan 1, 2009

Bosnian Croat writer Miljenko Jergović and Serbian writer Marko Vidojković replace one another by the steering wheel of Yugo, a symbol of their common past while driving on the Brotherhood and Unity Highway that stretched across five of six republics of Yugoslavia.

5.8

The Peaks of Zelengore

Jan 1, 1976

During the Battle of Sutjeska, partisan troops must endure 24 hours of big and heavy attacks on German units Ljubino grave, to the main Partisan units, with the wounded and the Supreme Headquarters, pulled out the ring that is tightened around them.

0.0

El Shatt – A Blueprint for Utopia

Jun 22, 2023

Hundreds of frozen and starved people floating on boats in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea fleeing from the war... Familiar scenes that we are used to seeing in recent times. But the year is 1944, and the refugees are travelling from Europe to Africa. After Italian capitulation,and before the arrival of German army, 28 000 Dalmatian Croats left their home villages and towns to live for two years under the tents in the middle of Egyptian desert, in a kind of a communist model village that was formed to show the Allies how the new Yugoslavia will look like when the war ends. This is a story about them.

3.5

Serbia, Year Zero

Nov 21, 2001

Documentary that follows events after the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, while looking back on the previous fifteen years, tracing his rise to power. Personal testimony alternates with analysis of a disintegrating society.

6.0

The Happy Child

Jan 1, 2003

The Happy Child is a story of "New Wave" rock genre predominant in the ex-Yugoslavia during the socialist 70's and 80's.

0.0

Save the Last Bullet

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Based on events from the Balkan Wars. 1991: Amidst the cruel battle of Vukovar, a brave squad of Croatian soldiers fights its way through the besieged country to deliver a truck full of weapons to the Serbian border.

0.0

Hotel Sunja

Jan 1, 1992

In 1992, the Yugoslav army and Serbian paramilitary forces captured one-third of Croatia as the country was engulfed in a state of war. A squad of fighters is defending their position in the small but strategically significant village of Sunja, where the invaders have surrounded them on three sides. Ivan Salaj, a young and gifted director who was still enrolled in film school at the time, chooses to use their story as the subject of his student film. Considered one of the most important films from a period when Croatian independence was still at stake, it provides an accurate portrayal of life on the front lines. What makes Hotel Sunja even more special is that it was made by a group of students who risked their lives to make the movie.

8.0

The Other Side of Everything

Sep 11, 2017

For Serbian filmmaker Mila Turajlic, a locked door in her mother's apartment in Belgrade provides the gateway to both her remarkable family history and her country's tumultuous political inheritance.

7.2

The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner

Jan 1, 1974

A study of the psychology of a champion ski-flyer, whose full-time occupation is carpentry.

10.0

Lost Button

Jan 1, 2015

A documentary about Goran Ivandic 'Ipe', the drummer of most popular Yugoslav rock band of all time, Sarajevo-based "Bijelo dugme" (White Button). Ivandic's fatal jump from the balcony of hotel Metropol in Belgrade in 1994 sparked much controversy around his fate.

7.3

Once Brothers

Oct 12, 2010

Drazen Petrovic and Vlade Divac were two friends who grew up together sharing the common bond of basketball. Together, they lifted the Yugoslavian National team to unimaginable heights. After conquering Europe, they both went to USA where they became the first two foreign players to attain NBA stardom. But with the fall of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day 1991, Yugoslavia split up. A war broke out between Petrovic's Croatia and Divac's Serbia. Long buried ethnic tensions surfaced. And these two men, once brothers, were now on opposite sides of a deadly civil war. As Petrovic and Divac continued to face each other on the basketball courts of the NBA, no words passed between the two. Then, on the fateful night of June 7, 1993, Drazen Petrovic was killed in an auto accident. This film will tell the gripping tale of these men, how circumstances beyond their control tore them apart, and whether Divac has ever come to terms with the death of a friend before they had a chance to reconcile.

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0.0

Stealing of the Sun

Jan 1, 1978

While new, monster housings are being erected, people grow a small farm in their vicinity. Soon the bulldozers come and ransack it.

7.0

The Unforgiven

Aug 14, 2017

Is it possible for a war criminal to find forgiveness and to reconcile with the past? How do you find your way back to what is known as a normal life when you have been convicted of one of the worst crimes of all – a crime against humanity? Esad Landzo has looked for answers for many years, but in vain. He decides to make one last attempt. The Balkan War criminal travels back to Bosnia to meet his former camp-guard friend, his victims and his family. Will he ever be forgiven? Should he?

0.0

Saved by Language

Jan 15, 2015

Can a language save your life? Yes it can, even an ancient one from the 15th century. Saved by Language tells the story of Moris Albahari, a Sephardic Jew from Sarajevo (born 1930), who spoke Ladino/Judeo-Spanish, his mother tongue, to survive the Holocaust. Moris used Ladino to communicate with an Italian Colonel who helped him escape to a Partizan refuge after he ran away from the train taking Yugoslavian Jews to Nazi death camps. By speaking in Ladino to a Spanish-speaking US pilot in 1944 he was able to survive and lead the pilot, along with his American and British colleagues, to a safe Partizan airport.

0.0

My friends

Jan 1, 2008

A film about a generation of four friends who grew up together in Sarajevo. They are the friends of filmmaker Lidija Zelovic-Goekjian, now living scattered across the world. What has happened to them over the past 13 years: how did they survive the war, how do they live now, how do they look back on their former lives, on Sarajevo, and on their old friends?

The Weight of Chains

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

The Weight of Chains Trailers