
Rajko Grlić
Writing
Biography
Rajko Grlić (born 2 September 1947) is a Croatian film director, producer and screenwriter. He is a professor of film theory at Ohio University and artistic director of the Motovun Film Festival in Motovun, Croatia. Rajko Grlić was born in 1947 in Zagreb, FPR Yugoslavia. His father was Danko Grlić, a famous Croatian philosopher. Grlić's family by his father's side came to Zagreb from Schwarzwald, Germany in the 19th century, while his mother Eva (née Izrael) is from a Jewish family in Sarajevo. He graduated from the Film Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) at the same time as Emir Kusturica, a Bosnian film director. During the Croatian War of Independence, Grlić moved to the USA. In 2017, Grlić signed the Declaration on the Common Language of the Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks and Montenegrins. Description above from the Wikipedia article Rajko Grlić, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For

A pretty factory girl falls for an ex con. He's still in love with his ex wife. Love triangle soon becomes even larger.
Three for Happiness

In the summer of 1944, in a peaceful resort town in the Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia, an easy-going lifeguard takes in a widow of a partisan and her young son. Their relationship grows until he unknowingly saves a Nazi officer from drowning.
That Summer of White Roses

Two parallel tales about two modern women. One is Štefica Cvek, average and lonely girl who desperately tries to find the man of her dreams. The other story is about a woman director who is making the movie about Štefica and has the same problem.
In the Jaws of Life

Grlom u jagode is a 1975 Yugoslavian TV miniseries directed by Srđan Karanović and co-written by Karanović and Rajko Grlić. Depicting the life and times of a young man nicknamed Bane Bumbar, the series achieved huge popularity throughout SFR Yugoslavia. Revolving around Bane, his family, and his circle of friends, the series also portrays 1960s Belgrade, Serbia and Yugoslavia.
The Unpicked Strawberries

Educator and those educated in a home for juvenile delinquents in the same test: approach, take a peek into his soul to become a man. The story of a minor, neglected boys-offenders and their teachers who try to reject the old methods of rehabilitation.
Special Education

At a small border-post on the Yugoslav-Albanian border, yet another generation of soldiers suffering the usual amount of boredom awaits the end of their service, counting days to the moment when they should take their uniforms off for good. It is the spring of 1987 and the thought never even crosses their mind that they would, in fact, put them back on quite soon and go to war.
The Border Post

After returning from the Eastern Front to their small Croatian village as veterans of the First World War, Jovan Stanisavljević (nicknamed Čaruga) and his comrade known only as Mali join forces with the gang led by a local bandit and communist revolutionary Boža The Red. After Boža is brutally murdered by law enforcement officials, Čaruga takes over as the gang's leader, turning them into a bloodthirsty troop that won't take no for an answer.
Charuga

Misadventures of a hapless young man from rural Bohemia who, in 1991, is finally free to cross newly open borders.
Josephine

This film takes place in a small mining town in Serbia, within a time span covering the prewar, war, and postwar period. A story about tragic life of an illiterate woman from village, about her life with three men she loved. Her life, torn between dreams and reality, is a life of suffering, loneliness, disappointment, hope and love.
Petria's Wreath

Nikola is a man who knows how to really enjoy life; he's even able to rouse sympathy for his sinful ways. His brother turns a blind eye to his philandering although, with a broken marriage behind him, he doesn't have a clear conscience, either. Is there anything positive to be said about infidelity, or does it simply deserve the utmost contempt, particularly when it's more premeditated than spontaneous?
Just Between Us

Four very different people live in the same building but avoid each other because of differences in how they live their lives, what they believe in, and where they come from. They would probably never exchange a word, but misfortune pushes them towards each other. Their lives entangle in ways that profoundly challenge deep-held beliefs and prejudices surrounding material status, sexual orientation, nationality and religion. Slowly, and even painfully, they begin to open up to each other and recognize the essential humanity each of them possesses.
The Constitution

A young man who long ago gave over the hard work of being a composer for the easy life of a rich man's son is bamboozled into slapping together a musical production. Having borrowed right and left, and plagiarized the works of a friend, he feels cheap, very cheap. He feels even worse when the awful thing is a success.
Bravo Maestro

Maks is a brilliant lawyer who has been serving for years one of Croatia’s most powerful and ruthless businessmen, who made his fortune in the aftermath of the Balkan War. Maks’ latest service has been to have his client declared innocent of the murder of two of his workers for acting in self-defense. But the sudden appearance of a former girlfriend triggers a crisis of conscience in Maks, leading him to confront his employer and risk his life by uncovering a dense network of corruption at the highest level involving all branches of the State.
It All Ends Here

A well known theater and movie actor, dissatisfied with his conditions at home and at the theater suddenly stops the dress rehearsal of a play in which he has one of the main roles, and goes on the Danube to visit his friend, a boatman transporting bricks on his small barge from a brick plant in a poor settlement to Belgrade. This unexpected action confuses everyone in the actor’s environment. Everybody sets out to the Danube in order to find out the real reason for the actor’s odd behavior and to find out when he will return to normal life. The actor refuses to talk, stating that he only knows what he does not want! The young director, who had started working on filming a portrait of the actor prior, doesn’t know what to do. The opening night is postponed.
The Fragrance of Wild Flowers

Tomislav is a former Partizan who continues his struggle after the war as a dedicated member of Tito's secret police. He meets and falls in love with a ballet dancer from a bourgeois family. His love affair with the class enemy and his slow adaptation to the post-war realities could seal his doom.
You Love Only Once

A film about a theatre performance and four very notable people behind it: writer and director D. Jovanović, actress M. Zupančič and actors R. Polič and B. Cavazza. This is a story of a love triangle and of a multi-layered, entirely overt intertwining of protagonists’ public artistic personas and their personal lives. The film documents a 4-month process of the making of a theatre piece from the first rehearsal to the opening night, at the same time uncovering the intimate lives of the artists and telling a universal story of the relationship between the real and the imagined, a story of personal and public perceptions of art.
Every Good Story Is a Love Story

The film Drinking Water and Freedom was made in 1973. It was only one minute long. The review commission for films from Socialist Republic of Croatia prohibited it from public screening. Its sequel, Drinking Water and Freedom II, was made in 1986. It tells the story of the fate of its predecessor and at the same time details what happened with a well and a stone plaque, the objects that had caused its ban. In 1998, Drinking Water and Freedom III was made, a third instalment and a continuation of the story about water, freedom and the well.
Drinking Water and Freedom III

A time for sowing and a time for a marriage followed by everyday struggle and change of seasons. Chicken feed on the seeds of plowed fields, man eats chicked, life eats man... In front of a fixed eye the cycle of life evolves.
All Eat Each Other

Momcilo 'Moca' Stojisavljevic has just finished his military service, and is faced with problems like finding a job and a place to live. His old girlfriend is now pregnant and she's about to live with him. Having managed to employ himself in a chicken production factory, Moca becomes fascinated with modern technology, automatism and cybernetics in the plant. By putting 100% of himself into all phases of work and its risks, he exposes his erogenous zones to life and its temptations.
Erogenous Zone
Krešo Poskok, a lonely man from a small backwards Croatian village, searches for Lovorka, a woman he had an unforgettable one night stand with fifteen years ago, not knowing that she had gotten engaged to Kapulica, the nearby town's chief of police. Whilst this small town conflict is busy taking place, the challenges Croatia experiances whilst joining the European Union turn the reunion between the two starcrossed lovers into an even more herculean task.