Blum: Gospodari svoje budućnosti (Blum: Masters of Their Own Destiny). 2024. Bosnia/Herzegovina. Directed by Jasmila Žbanić. North American premiere. In Bosnian, English; English subtitles. 76 min.
Having illuminated Serbian war crimes committed during the breakup of Yugoslavia between 1991 and 2001 in such dramatic fiction films as Grbavica (2006) and her Academy Award–nominated Quo Vadis, Aida? (2020), Jasmila Žbanić now turns to the documentary form to shed light on an extraordinary historical figure, Emerik Blum. A Bosnian Jew of Hungarian descent, Blum managed in 1944 to escape two of the most notorious concentration camps run by the Croatian fascist Ustaše. He thrived during the early postwar years of Marshal Tito’s Yugoslavia by ascending to top ministerial positions in the power sector, leading him to become the founding director of Energoinvest, one of Europe’s largest (and still-preeminent) engineering conglomerates. Fascinating archival footage and contemporary testimonials in Žbanić’s film reveal Blum to have been a humane boss and a shrewd diplomat, bringing technological advancements and efficiencies together with a considerably profitable understanding of how Yugoslavia’s non-alignment policies could serve his company’s international success. In doing so, Blum also helped open to the world a nation that was caught in the geopolitical rivalries of the Cold War. Shortly before his death in 1984, Blum was elected mayor of Sarajevo, and his reputation as an influential philanthropist succeeds him.