Predictions of Fire

Predictions of Fire
Predictions of Fire
	Laibach (band); Peter Mlakar; Slavoj Žižek
Release date	October 2, 1996;
Country	United States
Language	English

Predictions of Fire or Prerokbe ognja is a 1996 documentary film by American filmmaker Michael Benson about Neue Slowenische Kunst.

Synopsis

In 1991, SR Slovenia's violent secession from SFR Yugoslavia marked the first spark in the Yugoslav Wars that defined the first chapter of the post-cold war era. Using an inventive combination of reportage, dramatization, archival footage, animation and miniatures, Predictions of Fire is a revealing study of the controversial and internationally acclaimed Slovenian arts collective NSK, as seen through the lens of 20th century Central European history. Shot in Ljubljana, Moscow, New York City, Belgrade, and Athens, this visually arresting film offers a portrait of a culture suspended between East and West. By documenting NSK, Predictions of Fire holds a mirror up to Europe and the world, analyzing the way nations are brought into conformity with ideology.

The film won the National Film Board of Canada's Best Documentary Award at the 1996 Vancouver International Film Festival. The jury issued a statement: "Predictions of Fire is intellectual dynamite. It explodes the icons and myths of communism and capitalism. Out of the shattered history of Slovenia, this film constructs a new way of looking at art, politics, and religion."

In the early 1980s, an industrial rock band named

arts collectives in the world. Modeled after a socialist state bureaucracy

, and calling themselves Neue Slowenische Kunst (New Slovenian Arts, or NSK), these three groups became the titular heads of a micro-state within the independent republic of Slovenia. NSK recently began issuing its own passports and opened embassies and consulates in Moscow, Berlin, Ghent, Florence, and in the US.

Although Predictions of Fire documents the NSK collective, positioning their work within the history of ex-Yugoslavia, the film emerges as much more than an arts documentary. Predictions of Fire offers surprising insight into the Yugoslav conflict and the ongoing trauma experienced by generations of Eastern Europeans raised in totalitarian regimes. Variety wrote that the film "uses a postmodern, quasi-Godardian sensibility to show how politics invades every facet of artistic creation and how integral ideology is to the understanding of the structure and signification of images... An extremely rich tapestry of historical events and their mythic implications in both art and politics unfolds onscreen."^[1]