Director: Lazar Stojanović
Country: Yugoslavia
Award: none
Movement: Yugoslav Black Wave
Lazar Stojanović was studying at the Belgrade Academy of Dramatic Arts in the early 1970s when he created his thesis film, Plastic Jesus. The film follows a Belgrade-based avant-garde Croatian performance artist and structural filmmaker Tom Gotovac (who plays a self-aware, ironic version of himself). Lazar Stojanović interweaves his original footage with black-and-white archival material depicting Yugoslavia from World War II through the late 1960s. This contrast between the protagonist’s uninhibited lifestyle and the imagery of Nazi and Yugoslav wartime propaganda creates a pointed reflection on personal freedom, Yugoslav society, and authoritarian rule. Amid the political upheavals of Josip Broz Tito’s government, the film was deemed subversive and confiscated. Stojanović was imprisoned alongside other student reformers and artists, and parts of the film were censored. It remained unseen until 1990, when it was finally released with the statement: “Plastic Jesus was filmed in 1971, arrested in 1972, convicted in 1973 and set free in 1990.”
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