Contact & registration: nikacimpersek@gmail.com

In recent years, there has been a noticeable resurgence of interest in the history and legacy of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), particularly among civil society organizations and progressive internationalist circles in countries that emerged from Yugoslavia. Arguably, this renewed interest is driven by the movement’s 60th anniversary in 2021 as well as by a growing recognition that we once again find ourselves at a turning point amid rising inequality, escalating geopolitical tensions, both enduring and emerging forms of colonialism, and the climate crisis.

How might we reassess the historical and political significance of non-alignment in relation to the pressing challenges of the present? The legacy of the NAM has been explored through a growing number of academic, artistic, and activist projects, as well as events, exhibitions, and conferences. These initiatives re-examine the movement as a historical phenomenon but also reconsider its legacy as an opportunity to reinvigorate the various forms of transnational cultural, artistic, scientific, architectural, and academic exchanges of the so-called “golden age” of the NAM, offering a framework for addressing questions such as transnational and decolonial solidarity.

Although research on the contemporary relevance of non-alignment is expanding, little focus has been placed on how the movement is being remembered. The event seeks to fill that gap by examining how non-alignment is remembered, reinterpreted, and recontextualized, with a special emphasis on film as a tool and medium of remembrance. Beyond revisiting an often-overlooked chapter of international history, the event will also explore how non-alignment shaped personal histories, bringing to light lived experiences, memories, and narratives that continue to resonate today.

Speakers:

Christian Guerematchi is a Slovenia-born performance artist coming from classical ballet and creating in contemporary dance. In 2006, Guerematchi moved to the Netherlands, where he studied Theatre Studies at the UvA and somatics at the Institute for Somatic Movement Coaching. Since his debut, Guerematchi’s approach to contemporary dance performance has been influenced by literature, visual arts and videography. His artistic topic is: Codes of the Black Body and the Black European Identity. In his work, he tackles forgotten histories and black culture and gives it a different angle and perspective. With his work he is trying to create a discourse around epistemic paradigms of society and its diverging narratives. His work is strongly artivistic and is defined by the philosophy of the historic as well as the artistic Non-Alignment. Being born in Yugoslavia as a queer person of colour, he is seeking to redefine the borders of black vs. white; male vs. female; East vs. West and North vs. South. His newest project is Non Aligned Movement, an upcoming experimental documentary film by Sergej Kreso, produced by Doxy Film Amsterdam.

Sergej Kreso was born in 1963 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He studied journalism at the Faculty of Political Sciences. Besides his work as a journalist, he was also active as a musician in the New Primitives movement playing in the band ‘Elvis J. Kurtovic’. In 1993 Kreso came as a refugee to the Netherlands, where he continued his career as a filmmaker, journalist and musician. In 2004 he directed the documentary Symphony for a Street Musician. This film is the first of Kreso's trilogy inspired by the war in his homeland, and whose central thread consists of stories about war, people and music. The trilogy is completed by the films Graffiti Street, made in 2007 in a Bosnian-Croatian production, and Jack, the Balkans and I shot in 2008 for Dutch television. In 2011 he directed Coffee, Cake and Crematorium, a film about crematorium tourism between Germany and the Netherlands. This film marked the beginning of a new phase in Kreso’s work, reflecting his fascination with human roots, identity and adaptability. His documentary Here We Move, Here We Groove was nominated for the highest Dutch film award, the Golden Calf, and the IDFA Award for Best Dutch Film. His newest project is Non Aligned Movement, an upcoming experimental documentary film, a production of Doxy Film Amsterdam.

Paul Stubbs is a UK-born sociologist living and working in Croatia since 1993. He is Emeritus Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Economics, Zagreb. His main research interests are: The anthropology of policy translation; Left-green municipalisms; International actors in social policy; and The history of socialist Yugoslavia in relation to the Global South. His latest book is The New International Economic Order: Lives and Afterlives published by Routledge. He also edited Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement: Social, Cultural, Political, and Economic Imaginaries, published by Mc-Gill Queens University Press in 2023. 

Mila Turajlić, born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, is an award-winning filmmaker and archive ‘artivist’ whose works include Cinema Komunisto (2010), and IDFA-winner The Other Side of Everything (2017). Her most recent documentary diptych Non-Aligned & Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes From the Labudović Reels (2022) - an archival road trip through the birth of the Third World - was described by The New York Times as ‘a visually arresting inquiry into what it takes to envision a new world’. In 2018 Mila was commissioned by MoMA New York to create video installations for their landmark exhibition on Yugoslav modernist architecture. She is the founder of the Non-Aligned Newsreels research project (nonalignednewsreels.com) an artistic exploration of the ‘orphaned’ status of film archives made by Yugoslavia in a gesture of ‘ciné-solidarity’ with the non-aligned world. Performative and video iterations of the project were curated for IDFA on Stage, international exhibitions and biennials (Berlin’22, Belgrade’22, Sharjah’25). In 2020 Mila was invited to join the AMPAS (Oscars) Documentary Branch. She was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2022.

Programme:

09:30 – 10:00 Coffee/arrivals

10:00 – 10:10 Welcome and introductions

10:10 – 10:30 Keynote lecture

Paul Stubbs: The Lessons and Legacy of Non-Alignment 

10:30 – 10:50 Keynote lecture (virtual)

Mila Turajlić: Retracing Trans-national Solidarity and Kinship Through the Newsreel Archive

10:50 – 11:30 Post-keynote discussion and Q&A

Moderator: Nika Cimperšek Bukinac

11:30 – 12:00 Coffee break

12:00 – 13:00 Short talks and panel discussion

Christian Guerematchi and Sergej Kreso: The Afterlives of Non-Alignment in Contemporary Creative Practices

Moderators: Nadica Denić and Nika Cimperšek Bukinac

13:00 – 13:30 Lunch Break

13:30 – 15:15 Film Screening

Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels (2022)

15:15 – 15:30 Break

15:30 – 16:00 Discussion with RMa students

16:00 – 16:30 Borrel/Drinks

Conditions for obtaining ECTS:

• Attendance and active participation
• Preparatory reading assignment (100 pages)
• Preparatory assignment: participants are asked to submit questions for the speakers before the event
• Reflection after the session: participants are asked to submit a reflection of 1000 words, a selection of which will be published as part of an online archive documenting the event