In 1998, at the European premiere of Saving Private Ryan, Director Spielberg mentioned a name that was unfamiliar to the reporters present: Hajrudin Hiba Kelvavac.
Spielberg said he wasn't excited at first about the idea of making a Normandy landing war movie, which is already common in Hollywood. So he watched many European directors shoot World War II films, hoping to find inspiration from them. Among them, the work of Hayrudin Shiba Kelvavac convinces him that as long as there is a good group of actors, there is no need to work hard to mobilize the crowd, and a war film can have an explosive effect.
Khairuddin Shiba Kelvavac was the director of the Yugoslav films Bridge (1969) and Walter Defending Sarajevo (1972), which, together with Night Attack on the Airport, formed the partisan film trilogy in which he became famous in Yugoslavian and even in the world.
Hiba, a Muslim-born Sarajevo, participated in guerrilla-led underground resistance during the Nazi occupation. After the end of World War II, he was sent to the Belgrade Diplomatic Journalism Academy to study. While at school, he was imprisoned as a political prisoner for opposing Tito's foreign policy, and although he was released six months later, his dream of becoming a diplomat was shattered.
"The Father" of "Whirlpool"
Hiba's film career began with documentaries, and he fully demonstrated his outstanding narrative talent in a series of films such as "Memories of the Railway", "Climber", "Child", "Beware" and so on. In 1964, he finally had the opportunity to participate in the filming of the feature film Vortex. The film consists of three short films, written and directed by Hiba, titled "Father", in which the father is asked by Nazi officers to choose between his two sons, one to survive and the other to be shot, which is a plot that has never appeared in previous films, which is very shocking.
Hiba, who admits to being an American Western fan, distills the motives and elements of the struggle between good and evil from Westerns, incorporating justice and injustice, friendship and betrayal into his guerrilla films. His first attempt at Night Attack on the Airport (1967) was his first attempt, and while the film was uneventful and the characters were not clear enough, he had the opportunity to create a trusted team of collaborators, including actors Velimir Bata Zhvoynovic, Rubisha Samadzic and composer Bojan Adamidge.
If "Night Attack on the Airport" is still a film that conforms to the propaganda of Tito's government, then "Bridge" represents Hiba's further progress on the road to entertainment, based on real events, drawing inspiration from the American Western film "Sunset Yellow Sand" and David Lane's famous "Bridge on the River Kwai" to make a thrilling film for audiences of all ages.
Hiba was on location on the filming of The Bridge
Hiba, who is considered to be a man without fear, personally selected the scenes, found the Tara Valley Bridge in Montenegro as a filming location, and all the dangerous shots that happened on the bridge, he demonstrated them one by one, and said to the actors: If you are afraid, get out of here early.
Harrison Ford and others starred in "Navron Tenth Commando", set on the Tara Valley Bridge
The Bridge was voted the audience's favorite film at the Pula Film Festival, the largest film festival in Yugoslavia, and distributed to all countries in the world except Albania, Czechoslovakia, South Korea, Mongolia and Vietnam. The film also inspired many follow-up works, and 9 years later, Hollywood used this theme to shoot the sequel to "Navalon Cannon", "Navron Tenth Commando", and even chose the location of the Tara Valley Bridge.
Walter Defends Sarajevo is a masterpiece of guerrilla cinema that is also based on real people and true stories, incorporating Hiba's own experiences, with the young guerrilla Marish having his own shadow.
Hiba and his football team
This is the first time he has returned to the city where he lives to make a film, and in his opinion, the people of Sarajevo are not only brave, but also full of enthusiasm for life, and he hopes to have an infectious sense of humor while showing brutal struggles. In order to get the actors into this mood, as a fan, he organized a football team during filming and played against the local team, which he thought was the best way to get to know the Sarajevo people.
When Heba visited Shangying, he talked with Xiang Mei and Bai Mu
To date, Walter Defends Sarajevo is still considered the most watched Yugoslav film, thanks to the fact that it resonated with audiences in China, India and the Soviet Union, especially in China, which set off a movie-going boom. Hiba visited China with a Yugoslav film delegation and was welcomed like a star everywhere he went.
Hiba poses with the cast of Guerrilla Squadron
Regrettably, Hiba's work does not seem to have been welcomed by President Tito. Tito had personally attended the premieres of the Battle of Neretva and the Battle of Sudeska, but said nothing about The Bridge and Walter Defending Sarajevo, and official commentators criticized Hiba's films for being too legendary and entertaining to guide teenagers properly.
Hiba was a prolific screenwriter who wrote more than 20 guerrilla-themed plays, but was not in a position to bring them to the screen until 1979, with the financial support of Israeli producer Minahan Golan, that he made another film, Guerrilla Squadron, which tells the story of the Yugoslav Partisan Air Force fighting German fascism, which did not achieve the desired effect due to financial and stunt conditions.
Hiba has since returned to the documentary field, and as his interests turned to studying the history of the Yugoslav Muslims, his films rarely received public releases.
Hiba died in the Siege of Sarajevo. In April 1992, on the day when the European Union, the predecessor of the European Union, officially recognized the independence of the Republic of Bihno-Heilanda, the Bosnian Serb armed forces used tanks and artillery to bombard Sarajevo, which was mainly inhabited by Muslims and Croats, and the Bosnian War broke out.
Bata starred in all of Hiba's films, and the picture shows him getting received by President Tito
While Sarajevo was not yet under siege, Villimir Bata Zhivoinović was making a comedy not far from Sarajevo when he set up a helicopter to rescue Hiba and wanted to move him to safety, when Bata was a member of the Serbian parliament, and for this reason Hiba refused his rescue. Bata later revealed the incident in an interview, and when asked about the cause of Hiba's death, his answer was: "He was starved to death." This claim was later strongly opposed by the Sarajevoites, who said that they would never watch a respected and beloved Bosnian artist die of starvation, in fact, Hiba died 3 months after the siege of the city due to a heart attack that could not be treated in time, at the age of 66.
Statue of Hiba in the Walter Defending Sarajevo Museum
This statement was supported by Rubisha Samadzic, who said: "When the war broke out, I called Hiba, who was living in the Koshevo Hospital in Sarajevo (this hospital is famous for the birth of a baby boy at 00:02 on October 12, 1999, marking the population of the earth reaching 6 billion). I said to him, 'Dear Sheba, I have a way to get you out of this hell.' He interrupted me at once, "Fuck me, Liu Bisha, I don't need your help. I want to stay with the city of Sarajevo, and I want to be buried according to true Muslim customs. ’”
Rubisha returned to Sarajevo
Rubisha Samadzic played Guise in Walter Defending Sarajevo, the partisan who fought alongside Walter to defend Sarajevo, and although he was a Serb, he always had extraordinary feelings for Sarajevo. He visited Sarajevo several times during his lifetime, returning to the places where he fought in the film.
Rubisha in front of Theiba Tomb
Liubisha Samadzic said: "Hayrudin Shiba Kelvavac is probably the most interesting person in the film industry. He was a kind, intelligent and wise man. He respects people and people love him unreservedly. With his four films, he left a deep mark on anti-fascist films. Although people today are desperate to forget Tito's time, Hiba deserves to be respected. ”