Želimir Žilnik

Kenedi, Lost and Found

Režija	Želimir Žilnik
Country of production:	Serbia
Year of production:	2005
Duration:	26 min
Editing:	Marko Cvejić
Production:	Terra Film

Film plot

Two years after completing "Kenedi Goes Back Home" Zelimir Zilnik finds the main protagonist Kenedi Hasani in Vienna and follows him on his journey from the Western Europe back to Serbia.

Želimir Žilnik is the author devoted to contemporary topics, which include social, political, and economic criticism of a daily life. His first films were documentaries: Journal about Youth in the Country, in the Winter (1967), Little Pioneers, We’re Quite an Army, Every Day Do We Grow like Green Grass (1968), Unemployed People (1968), and June Events (1968). Student protests in 1968 are the topic of his first feature film "Early Works" (1969). The "Early Works" was immediately forbidden to be screened, with the argument that it insulted public moral and had bad influence on youth education. At Berlin Festival, the film was awarded with Grand Prix. After the screening of his new film, "Freedom or Comic" (1972), was forbidden, Žilnik immigrated to Germany. In Germany, where he shot a serious of documentaries on immigrants, Žilnik created the documentary "Public Execution" (1975). This film is the only German documentary banned immediately after its origination. In it, the director deals with South American terrorist gang which was, immediately after the robbery, killed in front of TV cameras. In late 70s, Žilnik went back to Yugoslavia, and continued his work on documentary, rare feature films, and documentary TV dramas. Until 2001, he shot eight feature films, 27 documentaries, and 11 TV dramas. All these creations have a recognisable author’s characteristic – both in thematic and poetic sense. Besides the films "Pretty Women’re Walking through the Town" (1985) and "This is how the Steel Was Tempered" (1988), where the leading roles were played by professional actors – in all other ones – both documentaries and feature films - Žilnik mostly engaged non-professional actors. In the majority of cases they play themselves. In Žilnik’s films of 90s, such as "Tito among the Serbs for the Second Time" (1994) and "Marble Ass" (1995) the non-professional actors also play roles. Želimir Žilnik’s film opus was marked with a recognisable author’s style: minimalist film poetics, the demystification of various social concerns, and exceptionally cheap films in sense of production.