If You Were Not There, You Cannot Remember

The author raises the question whether music documentaries have the power to blur the line between the past and the present. By unfolding the surprising elements of the cultural, economic and political relations between Yugoslavia and the USA in the 1950s and 1960s, he shows film to be one of the most important elements leading to the emergence of rock’n’roll, counterculture and subcultures in (former) Yugoslavia. In conclusion, he considers today’s growing production of music documentaries that reveal not only the details about rock’n’roll heroes but also the obscure, forgotten and cool musical phenomena.

The integral version of this article can be found in the printed KINO!