Ciné-Guerrillas/Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović

These documentaries follow Yugoslav president Tito’s cameraman, who was sent to film liberation wars in Africa and Asia as part of Yugoslavia’s global anti-colonialist push

It’s well worth watching this pair of pensive documentaries by Mila Turajlić, which, through the person of Marshal Tito’s preferred cameraman Stevan Labudović, highlight and question the role of film-making in forging political narratives. The first, Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes from the Labudović Reels (★★★★☆), is directly focused on the lenser’s own history; in particular a key episode when, as part of Yugoslavia’s global anti-colonialist push, he was sent to cover the unfolding Algerian war of independence.

A one-time teenage partisan with a lust for adventure, Labudović, as Tito’s envoy, enjoyed unrestricted access to the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN). Willing to put himself in the firing line to get the key angles on the fight against the French, he became a kind of Robert Capa or Don McCullin of the “third world” (in the late 1950s still an aspirational term referring to “non-aligned”, often newly independent countries looking for an alternative to might-is-right geopolitics). As Algeria had no film industry, Labudović’s skills were indispensable in counteracting the French depiction of the freedom fighters as brutal fellagha (bandits) and, beyond, emphasising their emancipatory nature to influence world opinion.