FROM THE HISTORY OF CROATIAN CINEMA

Oktavijan Miletić’s new film found

Text reports about the discovery of Oktavijan Miletić’s unknown film Kroatisches Bauernleben (1942) produced by the German film company Tobis-UFA. Although the film was mentioned in German and Austrian film catalogues, the author of the text found the actual film print in Vienna film archives in 2005. The text is a sequel of the previous Chronicle report in which the film was attributed to Miletić with some uncertainty. However, after the confirmation of Belgrade film archivist Dejan Kosanović in the last issue of the Chronicle, and the discovery of Oktavijan Miletić’s photo album in the archives of the Croatian cinematheque — including material evidence of Miletić’s sojourn in Germany and the shooting of the film (photographies from the set, film poster, photographies from Tobis film) — this text undoubtedly establishes the documentary film Kroatisches Bauernleben as Oktavijan Miletić’s film.

The most recent confirmation came off the Internet pages of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung from Wiesbaden, which is claiming to have a copy of the film (481 m long) in its collection. The text offers a choice of photographies as evidence from Miletić’s album, the translation of text read by a German speaker in the film, filmographic data from the opening credits, and reports of the shooting from the Ustasha press of the period.

Daniel Rafaelić