Photo by Peter Rauch.
Surfing The Black investigates the “black wave” movement of Yugoslav cinema, one of the most politically and aesthetically subversive cinematic movements of the sixties. The project was initiated by Pietro Bianchi, Dubravka Sekulić, Gal Kirn and Žiga Testen.
In the movie, Želimir Žilnik invites six homeless men to his flat for a few days (surprising his wife). He asks officials and people on the street if someone can help them, this being SFRJ (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), a state officially without those left on their own.
Our contribution to the project is a translation of a Dutch squatting poster from the 70s with the text: “Ik sta leeg, kraak mij” – which translates into english: “I’m empty (vacant), squat me” – referring to the building on which the poster would be hung. We translated the Dutch poster into Slovene, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Macedonian language with the intention that they would be hung in their own different context and give new birth to the message of the old squatting poster.
