Želimir Žilnik

Kenedi Returns Home

Director	Želimir Žilnik
Country of production:	Serbia
Year of production:	2003
Duration:	74 min
Sound:	Vladimir Stanojević
Camera:	Miodrag Milošević
Editing:	Marko Cvejić
Cast:	Kenedi Hasani, Denis Ajeti, Džemsit Buzoli, Sabaheta Alijević, Mevian Alijević
Production and distribution:	Terra film

Film plot

This is a film about a specific situation of Roma families at the end of the war in the former Yugoslavia. The Romas and their families were allowed to, within humanitarian action, come to Germany as refugees, when the war in the former Yugoslavia began. They lived in Germany, first as refugees, and later, they got an opportunity to get employed, children were born to them, and they had a feeling of a normal life. Roma children learnt German perfectly; they were good pupils and students at German schools and faculties. During 2002 and 2003, hundreds of the Roma with their families were deported from Germany back to Serbia overnight. German police and special government officers came to their apartments at night and asked these families to take only the most necessary things with them, and after that, they were immediately taken to the airport and sent back to Serbia. In Serbia, these families faced a great tragedy, they had to leave everything they had in Germany, and younger family members did not know any other language apart from German.

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.