Born in 1942, he was first noticed by the end of sixties for his visually expressive and critical films, and recognized both in his home country Yugoslavia and internationally with the documentary The Unemployed - Grand Prix at Oberhausen Festival 1968 and the feature Early Works - Grand Prix at Berlin Film Festival 1969. After Tito saw his feature debut Early Works he was banned from making films in Yugoslavia. In the early seventies, Žilnik was heavily criticized on ideological grounds, since his films were part of the “Black Wave” movement. He moved to Germany. Because of his critical portraying of the conditions of migrant workers and especially the film Öffentliche Hinrichtung about the arrest of RAF members which was staged by media, he was soon forced to leave Germany. Back in Yugoslavia, he worked for some time on theater productions ('’Gastarbeiter Opera'’) and since 1980 he has been formulating a specific language of docu-dramas. He founded the Teresianum production company in Budapest in 1993. The following year he helped in initiating video and television production for the most radical and independent media in Yugoslavia at that time - B 92 in Belgrade.
His feature and documentary dramas are regarded as cult films not only among former Yugoslavia’s alternative scene.

filmography

2005 Gde je Kenedi bio 2 godine?/Kje je bil Kenedi dve leti?
2005 Evropa preko plota/Europe Next Door
2003 Kenedi se vraća kući/Kenedi se vrača domov
2001Trdnjava Evropa
1994 Dupe od mramora / Marmornata rit
1993 Tito po drugi put među Srbima/Tito drugič med Srbi
1988 Tako se kalio čelik/Tako se je kalilo jeklo
1976 Das Paradies. Eine imperialistische Tragikomödie/Raj. Imperialistična tragikomedija
1976 Abschied/Slovo
1975 Öffentliche Hinrichtung/Javna usmrtitev
1975 Unter Denkmalschutz/Pod spomeniškim varstvom
1969 Rani radovi/Zgodnja dela
1968 Nezaposleni ljudi/Brezposelni

Director’s statement