COURAGE

savienojot kolekcijas

In some film and television works, director and screenwriter Niksa Fulgosi developed a subversive critical discourse that has the features of opposition. Sto ljepotica na dan [A Hundred Beauties per Day] is one of three films from his critical- feuilletonist trilogy of 1971 (which also includes  Sto kletvi na sekundu [A Hundred Curses per Second] and Sto zaduženja Betike Gumbas [The Hundred Duties of Betika Gumbas]). It was broadcasted in abridged versions "approved for presentation."

Sto ljepotica na dan is a satirical and multi-layered presentation of Yugoslav society, which presents the novelty of beauty contests in a humorous way. The film is characterized by the sharp social and political satire of socialist society; under the guise of an event, the author critically interprets the current social problems such as faulty administration, social differences, backwardness, low standards and so forth. The original film is held in the Documentation Centre of Croatian Television in Zagreb.

Mala Jole (Little Jole) from 1955 is the first feature film by Nikša Fulgosi, produced by Jadran Film. The film was shot in Hvar, in black and white technique. The recording of this comedy about the female captain of a ship who became a "boss" to men was aborted after direct intervention by Ivo Vrhovac, the new general director of Jadran Film.

According to the testimony of actress Ksenija Urličić, the official explanation for the cessation of production and the ‘lock-down’ of the film was an interpretation according to which a "socialist sailor was shown in the wrong light" (Tko je taj Nikša Fulgosi? Who is that Niksa Fulgosi?).

In the period from 1969 to the end of the 1970s, Nikša Fulgosi, as to do so in Yugoslavia, recorded a television series on sexuality for TV Zagreb (today HRT) under the title of Ljubavni jadi Pepeka Gumbasa i Marijete Buble [The Romantic Problems of Pepek Gumbas and Marijeta Buble]. The Monty Python-approach revealed "a master of common humour, avant-garde direction and promoter of liberal attitudes"; a filmmaker who – in times of "ideological eligibility" – mocked all manner of religious, political, and sexual hypocrisy. The provocative contents of the sketches showed women holding banners such as "We are being denied by kilometres of penises" and "Our right to be sexually exploited," along with a multitude of other "diversions," such as photographs of politicians who behave like sheep. According to sociologist Alexander Štulhofer, Fulgosi "used sex to criticize the bureaucratized political system" (Danko Volarić 2014).

Fulgosi shot and completed 13 episodes, of which only two were aired. Despite the end of the broadcast, Fulgosi continued to shoot new episodes (37 in total) which were also never aired. This unusual relationship between the creator and the "censor" illustrated the peculiarities of the Yugoslav socialist model, in which creative freedom was possible, but at the same time disproved as inadequate.

The screenplay for the feature film Kasni stisak ruke (The Late Handshake) from 1965 was the subject of a complex background of human drama based on stories from the Second World War, set in Dalmatia in 1943.

Faced with wartime circumstances and inspired by the universal human aspirations for overcoming the conflict, Fulgosi made a brilliant study of the controversy surrounding the war. However, the film was never made. There is no specific information about the reasons for the screenplay’s rejection. It can be assumed that Fulgosi's unconventional approach and choice of themes had come to the attention of censors as in the case of the making of his first film Mala Jole.