There are brothers at war, and there are brothers of war.

A controversial Serbian patriotic war epic sparked heated debates and contradictions. A trailer excerpt presentation at an industry event in Sarajevo IFF was enough for a viral spread of misleading headlines. Nobody even cared to watch Radoš Bajić’s film. A depiction of the largest and most monumental rescue operation of 512 American and Allied pilots from Nazi-occupied Yugoslavian territories.

The Halyard mission took place near the Pranjani village. It was a cooperation between the American forces and General Dragoljub Draža Mihailović of the Chetniks. He was later captured, tried, and executed in 1946 for war crimes and high treason. Serbian High Court scandalously rehabilitated the contentious general in 2015. The end credits of this film describe the heroism and commitment of Mihailović in a positive light regarding this historical event, but the general’s actions during the war are no secret.

Local families were already divided by radically separated ideologies in 1944. Sreten Jović willingly joins the Communist partisan movement led by Tito to his father’s despair. His brother Mirko fights in the nationalist troops with the Chetniks. They meet in the forest more often after younger brother Ilija is critically injured. Jovićs risk their lives by hiding rescued American soldiers from the slaughter of the patrolling Nazis. The secretly planned Operation Halyard will depend on many compromises.

Edvinas Pukšta