Janko Baljak

Vukovar – Final Cut

Director	Janko Baljak
Country of production:	Serbia
Year of production:	2006
Duration:	103 min
Sound:	Igor Perović
Camera:	Jovan Milinov
Editing:	Aleksandra Milovanović
Music:	Jana
Production and distribution:	B92

Film plot

This film is an attempt to make a good and true story on everything that happened in Vukovar in the spring, summer, and autumn of 1991. Also, some time before that period, and a bit after the tragic 1991. It is about historical, social, and emotional effects of all this after the years of pain, suffers, and destruction.

The film "Vukovar – Final Cut" won "Human Rights Award", awarded for the best documentary, at 12th Sarajevo Film Festival (2006).

Janko Baljak graduated film and TV direction at the Faculty of Drama in Belgrade. The first short feature film Because of Reasonable Doubt was screened within official selection of Yugoslav Documentary and Short Feature Film in 1986. This film officially closed Festival of Yugoslav Feature Film in Pula in 1988. The story Absolute Hearing represented the Faculty of Drama at World Festival of Film Schools in Munich in 1988 and within the selection for the Eighteenth "Oscar" for the best student film of non-English speaking area. The same film enabled him to take part at First European Summer Film School in Belgrade in 1989. The selection was made in London, and the lecturer to twelve best students was the director, Ištvan Sabo. His documentary Darby represented the activity of this school at Montreal Film Festival in 1990. His final work at the Faculty, TV drama A Long Life of Kos Married Couple was excellently accepted by both audience and critique. It was redeemed by French TV. He won "Milo Djukanović" award as the most successful student of film direction in his generation. He is the author of dozens of shows of culture-art programme of TV Belgrade. He is one of the founders of film and TV production of independent Belgrade radio "B 92". In this production, he realised a series of the documentaries successfully screened both in our country and abroad, which were awarded several times. Since September 1995, he has worked as fellow teacher of Professor Goran Marković, at the first year of film direction of the Faculty of Drama in Belgrade.

Filmography

1986: Because of Reasonable Doubt
1987: You Are Listening to the News of the Day
1988: Absolute Hearing; Unsuitable
1989: Darby
1990: A Long Life of Kos Married Couple
1991: Once upon a Time in Serbia (First Prize at Festival of Independent TVs, Sarajevo)
1993: Eco Aqua di Montenegro (First Prize for direction at International Festival of Sport, Tourist, and Ecological Film, Zlatibor; Pictures of Sad Events; Extreme Belgrade)
1994: Journalist, He Himself vs. All; All President’s Diaries, Kosovo Trilogy; Belgrade Groom Radio
1995: See You in Obituary (Grand Prix at the Festival of Documentary and Short Feature Film, Belgrade; YU Award YU FIPRESCI, of film critique jury; 41st International Festival of Short Film in Oberhausen, Germany; Grand prix at International Festival of Independent TVs, Košice, Slovakia; FIPA - Festival international de programmes audiovisuels, Biarritz, France, 1996; Trieste 1996; MEDIAWAVE International festival of visual arts, Győr, Hungary, 1996; First Prize and "NORTH-SOUTH" Festival in Geneva, Switzerland, May 1996)
1998: Ethnically Clean; Tobacco Route, international co-production - Sweden, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro (nomination for the best documentary screened on Swedish TV)
2000: 02:06 – Pain Anatomy (Grand prix at 47th Festival of Yugoslav Documentary and Short Film; Highly Commended Programme; PRIX CIRCOM REGIONAL, Potsdam 2000; 14th FIPA, Biarritz, France, 2001; 3rd Thessalonica Documentary Festival, Greece, 2001; 17th North-South Media Festival, Geneva, Switzerland, 2001)
2001: The Dead Kill – Pain Anatomy 2 (the best documentary at 48th Festival of Yugoslav Documentary and Short Film, Belgrade)
2002: Serbia in Container, documentary and TV series