
Branko Schmidt
Directing
Known For

Operation Barbarossa is a kids TV show, based on the novel The Mysterious Boy by Ivan Kušan. It is a story about a boy who for some time lives in the belief that he is to blame for the death of a friend, a peer, who drowned in the Sava river. In order to cover up his death, the boy takes his name (because he had just come to Zagreb when he disappeared) also goes to another school. Thus, in two shifts (before noon - afternoon), he tries to be a student in two schools and gets into many dramatic situations. The riddle is, of course, solved by Kušan's main character Koko.
Operation Barbarossa

Eliciting images of cancer, this drama explores the illnesses that plague modern Croatia. Four young junkies in Zagreb maturing in the wake of war reflect the petty hatreds, violence, prejudices and mood hanging over the country like a disease that spreads with no cure in sight.
Metastases

Ignored by the stories of the hawks and their weapons, little Tugomil can not resist the desire to shoot from the shotgun shot by his father Tomo. The boy will realize that he was flawed only when the old Martin was surrounded by gendarmes.
Highlands

Danko Babic is an ambitious and amoral gynaecologist at Croatia's leading fertility clinic. When his colleague Bantic is appointed as head of the clinic, Babic starts a secret war to overthrow his rival. Distracted by his ruthless campaign he makes series of fatal mistakes that result in the death of a patient. A crooked coroner and a corrupt police officer cover up his misdeeds, while Babic grows increasingly dependant on drugs and alcohol. He begins performing illegal abortions on prostitutes who work for Jedinko, a gangster who controls the local drug and sex trade.
The Vegetarian Cannibal

The story begins in a small rural village in Ladimirevci, Eastern Croatia in 1943, where a land owner Sima is helping the Partisan Movement and the official Ustasha regime in order to save the life of his son Beneš, who is enlisted in the German army. Sima doesn't want to let his son fight for the wrong side any more, and doesn't want to give him to the Partisans either, so he hides him in his attic for the time being. The story is interwoven with episodes of Sima trying to muster a beautiful stallion - Sokol - who only answers to his son Beneš and clearly doesn't like his old man.
Sokol Did Not Love Him

The journey of a Chinese woman and her fellow countrymen as they travel in search of a better place to live, only to end up struggling for survival in the Balkans.
The Melon Route

Miran is an unconventional priest who prepares children for the ceremony of confirmation. One of them is Goran, an orphaned teenage boy who enjoys Miran's attention. One day, a new boy moves into the neighborhood, and immediately becomes Miran's new pet student. Goran gets jealous and admits being in a sexual relationship with the priest, which sets in motion a series of unfortunate events.
Agape
The story follows a group of Croatian refugees who have been forced to leave their hometown of Vukovar by Serbian forces during Croatia's struggle for independence. The people are settled at a railway station in a village near Vukovar, where they live in a train which is adapted to serve as a temporary accommodation.The situation grows dim as the date of their return proves to be uncertain, and the lives of the survivors and refugees becomes more and more complicated being burdened by PTSD and strong feelings of hope to return to their homestead.
Vukovar: The Way Home
On the eve of Yugoslav war in 1991, English ecologist Henry comes to the city of Osijek in order to save the world's oldest oak. After many dangerous and funny adventures, they finally arrive to nearby village where the oak is located.
The Old Oak Blues

The story takes place in Osijek in 1968. Seventeen-year-old Tomo is the greatest hope the town of Osijek has for winning the Junior Cup of Yugoslavia. Josip Broz Tito himself is expected to come to Osijek to open the competition. Nevertheless, Tomo is more interested in girls than in rowing. The beautiful prostitute Betika and a lovely girl named Jasna have captured his heart. Unfortunately, he has impotence issues of which even his doctors are unaware. Therefore, is unable to realize his sexual fantasies. Finally, he ends up in a hospital where local members of the political elite persuade him to compete in the cup. These pressures come to a head when his father is taken to prison as a political suspect.
Queen of the Night

25 years from the Homeland war, Croatia is far from ideal of the veterans, now disgruntled men silenced with pensions. A few war veterans are brought back together by an idea of Museum of Homeland Thanksgiving in Paromlin building in Zagreb city center.
Once We Were Good for You

After spending 13 years in prison, forty-year-old Djuka Begovic returns to his home-village in Slavonia. He promises to his mother that he will begin a new and honest life. He finds new meaning in taking care of his daughter Smilja. He tries to chase away destructive thoughts that threaten to overwhelm him by throwing himself into hard work. However, everything around him reminds him of his past and his family's tragic destiny. His family was wealthy at the beginning of the twentieth century, but was destroyed by the capitalist powers that took over the villages and broke the traditional family cooperatives. Djuka's personal life was marked by constant conflicts with his father.
Djuka Begovic

A young violinist who plays at the war front decides to join his parents in Vienna after his best friend gets killed.
Christmas in Vienna

A war veteran with post-traumatic disorders talks about his practical inability to start a normal life after his fighting and killing experience. This 35-year-old married man with three children, who joined the Croatian army in the very beginning of the war and saw various Yugoslavian battlefields from his perspective of a sniper, is unemployed today and tries to adapt to his surroundings while still feeling the closest to his former, now similarly dispossessed co-fighters.
Bad Blue Boys

After Stipe Zvonarov returned from the Austro-Hungarian army to his Slavic village, he found his wife Mara and mother. Women rightly expect Stipe to accept rural jobs, but he can no longer accept the monotony and restrictions of rural life.
The Life of Stipe Zvonarov

Determined to move on with their life violently interrupted by war several years ago, an elderly couple returns to their restored home. We follow their everyday life through the four seasons. Every day She becomes more absent and lost. Instead of helping her, He acts brutishly, sometimes even cruelly, towards his wife. However, the realization that something is wrong with Her will make Him question his behavior and values.
Ungiven

Marko is a boy whose family finds himself in a difficult situation after his mother is severely ill. Although doctors perform a successful operation, the father abandons wife and son. In such a situation, Marko must be too early to grow up.
Early Maturation of Marko Kovac
After several families mysterious vanish from the small village of Borovo in 1991, a gang of young boys known as "The An Group" decide to investigate their disappearence, not knowing that it's the sign of a coming war.