Ljubavni slučaj ili tragedija službenice P.T.T. (Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator). 1967. Directed by Dušan Makavejev

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Ljubavni slučaj ili tragedija službenice P.T.T. (Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator). 1967. Yugoslavia. Directed by Dušan Makavejev. Written by Makavejev, Branko Vučićević. With Eva Ras, Slobodan Aligrudić. In Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles. DCP. 79 min.

An internationally renowned director of the Yugoslav Black Wave, Dušan Makavejev is also one of the most celebrated radicals in world cinema, having changed the landscape of the 1960s and 1970s with his freeform, taboo-breaking, anti-narrative films. Exploring the dialectics between sex and politics, art and history, with plenty of surrealist, archival, and documentary motifs, Makevejev is a fine artist, unashamed cultural critic, and offbeat teacher who spent his fair share of time giving lectures in the United States. Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator is the director’s second feature (and one of the best films of the 1960s), in which his trademark characteristics coalesce. Switchboard operator Izabela (Eva Ras) and sanitation expert Ahmed (Slobodan Aligrudić) fall for one another, and a blossoming romance quickly becomes the center point of a collage shifting between interviews with a sexologist, forensic investigations of the murder of a young woman, and explorations of the cultural and political landscape of Belgrade. Restored in 2K by the Yugoslav Cinematheque, Love Affair is a stunning, thought-provoking, comical, and altogether exhilarating experience.

This film accompanies Black Wave to White Ray: Yugoslav Film of the 1960s.

Past events

Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 1:30 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T2, Theater 2

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2
Fri, Sep 8, 2023, 7:00 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T2, Theater 2

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2

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