The unseen shots: anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist aspects of unmade co-productions about the 1914 Sarajevo Assassination

Abstract

Abstract Based on sources found in the Archive of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this article examines Sarajevo studio Bosna Film’s postwar attempts to co-produce a film about the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and Duchess Sophie Hohenberg. Yugoslav filmmakers’ celebration of Young Bosnia’s resistance to Austro-Hungarian imperialism and colonialism is juxtaposed to the official condemnation of the assassins’ ‘terrorism’. I investigate how the Yugoslavs confronted their partners’ purported exploitation of Yugoslav production resources and inclination toward narrative modifications of history as promising to attract a larger international audience. Examples of Bosna Film’s collaborations demonstrate the uneasy balance between memory production, socialist state-building, international cultural promotion and sustainable business development.