Film YU Grupa:The untold story of a Yugoslav rock&roll communist dream

Cold War. Yugoslavia, an island dancing between the two superpowers, embraces Rock music as part of "Yugoslav socialistic youth culture." Through the story of YU Grupa, a major Yugoslav rock band from the 1970s, the documentary portrays the heyday and demise of the Yugoslavian utopian experiment and a rock band named after it. A socialist country with Western living standards, the bridge between two blocs, now exists only as a memory while the Yu Band persisted. The two brothers who formed the band are in their 80s today. After surviving the car crashes in the 1980s, the Yugoslav civil wars in the 1990s, and, most recently, the deadly touch of Covid, brothers still firmly hold the family and the band together while touring and battling illnesses celebrating 60+ years in Rock music long after the country they named the band after is gone.

An intimate family portrait spanning 80 years, weaves together the story of three communities: the family, the rock band, and the doomed country – Yugoslavia. The three brothers were born right after the Second World War. Growing up in optimistic post-war Yugoslavia, they named their Rock band The Yu Grupa - after their homeland. The band unified ethnically diverse young country around their multiethnic folk-rock sound. Eventually and ironically, their band outlived the ill-fated country that it was named after. Creatively using the intimate Super 8 home movies blended with a wealth of Yugoslav, Croatian, Bosnian, and UK Film Archives material spanning decades, the film thematizes the moments in the history of Yugoslavia, weaving them together with personal struggles, collapsing barriers between epic and intimate, past and present, war and peace, while investigating the unique role the Rock music played in the Yugoslav utopian experience.

TRT: 87:00

Year of production: 2023

Country of production: Serbia

Awards: Belgrade Documentary IFF Grand Prix, Best Editing Award, Best Sound Design Award, Yearly Award for Best Documentary in 2023 by UFUS (Association of Film Artists Serbia) The trailer: https://vimeo.com/743491547?share=copy