Paper short abstract:

Yugoslav students who came to the Prague film school (FAMU) in the 1960s and 1970s learned the craft and went back to their home states to work. Movies they made were not only influenced by their own cultural background, they also carried the tradition of the Czechoslovak cinema.

Paper long abstract:

Yugoslav students were coming to the Prague film school (FAMU) for decades since the Academy was established in 1946. Young filmmakers learned the craft and went back to their home states to work. Their early movies carry strongly tradition of the Czechoslovak cinema, but also capture local cultural background which throughout time outweighes the experience they had as young students in Prague. Paper will focus on Yugoslav filmmakers, who came to FAMU in the 1960s and 1970s, and their work. Some of them studied in Czechoslovakia in turbulent second half of the 1960s and lived through both Prague Spring and Soviet invasion. Interesting subject of investigation is a fact that their Czech schoolmates did not have a productive career in Czechoslovakia unlike their colleagues including Slovaks. Strong group of Yugoslav film beginners who studied in Prague at the time holds the name "Prague School". The phenomena serves as a case study of foreign filmmakers drawing on experience gathered abroad and adapting it to one´s own film tradition. But it can also be seen from Czechoslovak perspective if we analyse the circulation and reception of those films. Yugoslav film students in Prague represent a very important chapter in terms of mutual relations of the two countries. Historical context of socialistic past that they both share enriches the topic with specific circumstances. These links therefore invite us to investigate hitherto neglected cinematic interactions of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.