Ciné-Guerrillas & Non-Aligned - Scenes from the Labudovic Reels

A documentary diptych.

In an unexplored vault in Belgrade, the capital of the former Yugoslavia, lies a collection of films known as ‘the Labudovic Reels’. On them are images of African and Asian liberation movements and revolutionary leaders that defined the era of the 1960s. How is it that the archive of these revolutions lies on another continent, forgotten in a film archive?

The answer to this question takes us into the story behind the images, on an intimate voyage with Stevan Labudovic, the man who filmed them. As the cameraman of Yugoslav president Tito, Stevan Labudovic captured an era of politics, personality and promise, filming the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement. Sent on missions by the President to film liberation wars, he would play a key role in the information battle that defined the era of decolonization. A diptych of films explores the untold stories behind this extraordinary film archive.

Non-Aligned re-traces the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement in the 50’s and 60’s and the personalities who defined it, examining how cinema gave expression to their political dream.

Ciné-guerrillas plunges us into the media battle that played out during the Algerian war for independence when the filmed image became a weapon of political struggle against colonialism.