Battle for the "Battle of the Neretva"

THE BATTLE OF NERETVA - in Italian

THE BATTLE OF NERETVA - in Russian

THE BATTLE OF NERETVA - in English

Zagreb's Jadran film and Veljko Bulajić, the director of the film "Battle on the Neretva", announced on Friday, March 8, that this film war spectacle, which in the past forty years was most often labeled as Yugoslav, officially belongs to Croatian cinematography and that it will be shown on the international stage to be shown as a film by Croatian authors.

The director of the public company Filmski centar Sarajevo, director Adis Bakrač, said two days later for Dnevni Avaz that he would sue the Croatian director Veljko Bulajić and Jadran film for the illegal appropriation of the film "Battle of the Neretva" as well as for the illegal sale of the films "Battle of the Neretva" and " Kozara". He claims that the rights to the film are indisputable and that they belong to Bosnia and Herzegovina, that is, to the Film Center Sarajevo, since "The Battle of the Neretva" was filmed in the production of "Bosnian Film" from Sarajevo in 1969, of which the Film Center is a legal successor. He declares that the Sarajevo Film Center has been working on the restoration of the film "Battle on the Neretva" for the past two years, and that viewers will be able to see it in HD format.

"Battle on the Neretva", (here you can read an article about it by Dinko Tucaković in Vremen No. 496, dated July 8, 2000), was shot in 1969 as one of the most expensive film projects.

The film was shot for 18 months, it was sponsored by 58 labor organizations throughout the former SFRY, and the combined regiment of the former JNA with 10.000 soldiers participated in it.

For the purposes of the film, JNA experts modified Soviet T-34 tanks to look like German Tiger I tanks. Four specially constructed villages, one fortress were destroyed, and the iron bridge on the Neretva was mined twice. The scene of the demolition of the real bridge over the Neretva was filmed on December 18, 1968, but not a single frame was included in the film, because a lot of dust arose after the bridge was blown up. This scene was later repeated on models in a Czechoslovak studio.

According to official estimates, the film cost $4,5 million, while American sources put the figure at $12 million.

The script was written by Stevan Bulajić, Veljko Bulajić and Ratko Đurović, and the film was directed by Veljko Bulajić. The film starred then-famous Yugoslav actors Bata Živojinović, Ljubiša Samardžić, Boris Dvornik, Milena Dravič, and foreign actors Jul Brynner, Sergej Bondarchuk, Orson Welles, Franco Nero, Silva Košćina, and others (see the list in the box. The English version of the film contains music by composer Bernard Herrmann performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra One of the original posters for the English version of the film was created by Pablo Picasso.

The film was a project in which joint Yugoslav producers participated, "Jadran Filma" hired the largest number of its technicians. In addition to them, there were also Italian, German and English partners, as well as United Commonwealth, then one of the largest production companies in the world.

A year after it was filmed, it was nominated for an Oscar in the category of foreign film, and at the Moscow festival in 2010 it was included among the ten most important films about the Second World War, and was marked as a co-production (Yugoslavia, USA, Italy, Federal Republic of Germany; 1969...)

Actors in "The Battle of the Neretva"

Kole Angelovski – Zika,

Stole Aranđelović – Šumadinac,

Faruk Begolli – Stevo,

Sergei Bondarchuk – Martin,

Jul Brynner – Vlado,

Orson Welles - Chetnik senator,

Oleg Vidov – Nikola,

Pavle Vujisic – Jordan,

Anthony Dawson - General Morelli,

Milena Dravic – Nada,

Boris Dvornik – Stipe,

Velimir Bata Živojinović – Commander of the Stola,

Kurt Jurgens - General Loring,

Silva Košćina – Danica,

Hardy Krieger - Colonel Krancer,

Charles Milo – Djuka,

Franco Nero – Captain Michele Riva,

Vasa Pantelić – partisan commander,

Howard Ross as Sergeant Mario,

Lojze Rozman – Ivan,

Ljubiša Samardžić – Novak,

Dragomir Felba – Montenegrin,

Hajrudin Hadžikarić – Vladimir Nazor,

Fabijan Šovagović - Ludi Boško...