A director who angered everyone—then vanished. Was he a coward or the last honest man?
We encounter the controversial Croatian film director Lordan Zafranovic in voluntary exile in Prague. The film follows his rise from a talented outsider to the celebrated Yugoslav director of the acclaimed war film, 'An Occupation in 26 Pictures'. His life story is an unconventional depiction of a rise and fall that reveals compromises made in order to survive artistically during communism, as well as the missed opportunities and miscalculations that led to his inability to adapt in later years. Is the charismatic Zafranovic a national traitor or a victim of historical circumstances in which the only thing he wanted to do, in his own words, was to be himself and make films?
Direction
Marinković lets his subject hang himself with charm
Writing
Interviews that feel like accidental confessions
Director
Pavo Marinković
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Zafranović's 'Occupation in 26 Pictures' remains the most internationally awarded Yugoslav film, making his erasure from Croatian cinema post-1991 a national wound still debated at festivals.
The documentary's Prague setting is loaded—Zafranović chose the city where his mentor František Čáp fled in 1948, suggesting he sees himself in a lineage of communist-era exiles rather than as a defector.
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