Vesi Vuković on her YUFE-project “Films by Yugoslav Women Filmmakers: Image, Sonic Icons, Lack of Digitisation, and Gender”

Between 1947 and 1991, the Yugoslav film industry was overwhelmingly male-dominated, with far fewer female directors. Today, these women are largely absent from film historiographies, and their works are rarely digitized, making them difficult to access.

A new research project, funded by the YUFE4Postdocs/Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions program and lead by ZeMKI member Dr. Vesi Vuković, aims to change this. Its goals include raising awareness of largely overlooked Yugoslav women filmmakers, organizing a workshop in April 2026 at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg in Delmenhorst, conducting in-depth case studies of their films, highlighting iconic soundscapes, exploring archival work and memory, and examining the politics of digitizing their cinematic works. Other often-neglected roles of women in film, such as editors and screenwriters, will also be studied.

The project runs from 2024 to 2027 at the University of Bremen, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Winfried Pauleit. The University of Essex in Colchester, UK, serves as co-host, with Prof. Dr. Sanja Bahun as co-supervisor.

What are Vuković’s personal motivations for focusing on this topic?

Vesi Vuković’s research is deeply influenced by her personal connection to the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, where she was born. Her interest in Yugoslav cinema stems not only from this background but also from the decline in scholarly attention to the region’s film industry following the country’s dissolution. She focuses particularly on women directors, who were numerically underrepresented in Yugoslav cinema, as in film industries worldwide, and whose work has largely been overlooked in historical accounts. Many of their films remain undigitized and are therefore at risk of being lost due to the deterioration of analogue film stock. Through her research, Vuković aims to raise awareness of these filmmakers and their works, advocating for their recognition within film scholarship and for the preservation of their films for future generations.

What are preliminary findings of the conducted research?

Preliminary findings from Vesi Vuković’s research reveal that Yugoslav women directors often explored women-related themes and placed prominent female characters at the center of their films, which was uncommon in the broader Yugoslav film industry. While their work sometimes included visual objectification of women, similar to male directors, these filmmakers generally offered more nuanced and complex portrayals of female characters, subtly challenging patriarchal norms and expectations within their cinematic narratives.

Current publications related to the project

In her latest article (https://film-history.org/approaches), Vesi Vuković sheds light on the cinema of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, which encompasses films made by Yugoslav directors from approximately 1947 to 1991. Only a small number of women directors were active in feature-length fiction during this period, which is why Vuković focuses on one of them: Vesna Ljubić (1938–2021), whose films she discusses in the article.

More literature surrounding the topic can be found here:

• Vuković, V. (2020). Treacherous women: Representation of female character as traitors of the nation in Partisan-themed Yugoslav New Films. In A.-S. Ionescu, M. Ţuţui, & S. Arslan (Eds.), Balkan cinema and the Great Wars. Berlin: Peter Lang.
• Vuković, V. (2019). Cinematic suicide: Representations of working women in Yugoslav New Film. Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe, 9. https://doi.org/10.17892/app.2019.0009.156
• Vuković, V. (2021). Of bees, birds, trees, and women: Iconography, superstition and victimization of female characters in Yugoslav New Film. Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication, 28(37), 285–307. https://doi.org/10.14746/i.2020.37.16
• Vuković, V. (2025). Transitions and Cinematic Dimensions of In-Betweenness in the Films of Vesna Ljubić: The Last Switchman of the Narrow-Gauge Railway (1986) and Defiant Delta (1980). Research in Film and History. https://film-history.org/approaches