Film Screening: The Blockade

As part of the Contesting Governance Platform at Utrecht University, and in collaboration with students and staff from Cultural Anthropology and Educational Sciences, we are hosting a film series titled Re-imagining the University. To start, we watched The Uprising (2019), a powerful music documentary by Pravini Baboeram. The second film we watched was Everything Must Fall (2019), a vivid reconstruction of the student protests at Wits University, Johannesburg, by Rehad Desai. For our third screening, we watched All Was Good (2022) (original title: Sab Changa Si) by Teresa Braggs, which intimately captures the 2019–2020 student-led protests in Bangalore, India, against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). For our fourth screening, we will watch The Blockade (2012) by Igor Bezinovic. This film provides a unique view from within the massive, longest, and politically most significant student protest in Zagreb, Croatia. 

Re-Imagining the University Film Series

By using film as a catalyst for discussion, we aim to create an environment for critical reflection on the challenges and opportunities facing the university as a place for critical reflection. This series is an invitation to rethink the university as a critical political space, to dream up new possibilities, and to chart a course towards a more equitable, inclusive, and transformative vision of learning and knowledge cultivation. This is especially crucial in view of the student-led liberation struggles we’ve witnessed on campus, as well as the unprecedented budget cuts announced by the far-right government. Each screening will be followed by a conversation led by invited discussants who will help frame key themes and open the floor for reflection. In these post-film discussions, participants will also be encouraged to experiment with various forms of knowledge-sharing, such as storytelling and creating collective archives. These interactive elements are designed to foster a collaborative environment where attendees can collectively re-imagine the purpose and future of the university.

The Blockade (2012)

The Blockade (original title: "Blokada") is a unique view from within on the most massive, longest, and politically most significant student protest in Croatia, since 1971, which started in April of 2009 at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. The struggle against the commercialization of education and the blockade of teaching classes lasted for 34 days. The rebellion spread to more than 20 faculties across the country and the students became an active and relevant political subject. The director followed everything: from the exhilarating preparation meetings and blocking of classes to the first signs of exhaustion, through personal situations and discussions late at night, from the initial support of most faculty members to the moment they turned their back to the movement and the attempt to reach the missing minister of education. This film shows that the blockade was not just physical and that it has a much broader meaning.

For the post-film discussion, we are honoured to welcome Andrea Milat and Hrvoje Tutek. Milat is editor-in-chief at Bilton.org, a critical regional Balkan media outlet, and Tutek is a senior assistant at the University of Zagreb who stayed working when the blockade happened.