Location: Stanford / San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Medium: Documentary Film, Video Installation, Archival Research
Website: skeca.com
Srđan Keča is a Yugoslav-born filmmaker, visual artist, and educator based in the United States, and Associate Professor and Program Director of the MFA in Documentary Film in the Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University. He is an alumnus of Ateliers Varan (Paris) and the UK National Film and Television School, and a Sundance Institute grantee. His films have premiered at the Berlinale, IDFA, HotDocs, and Cannes, and his video installations have been exhibited at the Venice Biennale of Architecture and the Whitechapel Gallery. His work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Sight & Sound, Variety, Filmmaker Magazine, and Senses of Cinema.
Keča’s work centers on sites of memory — the physical and psychic residue of conflict, displacement, and political failure, particularly in relation to the dissolution of Yugoslavia. He moves between observational documentary, archival feature filmmaking, video installation, and research-based practice, drawn to spaces where history is literally still present: an unfinished museum, an abandoned boat, a mausoleum for drug lords. His approach is slow and poetic, favoring long observation over journalistic summary. He is interested in the people history forgets and the structures — buildings, ships, institutions — that outlast the ideals that built them.
- A Letter to Dad (2011) — Medium-length documentary exploring family memory and the Yugoslav Wars; screened at IDFA 2011; won Best Balkan Documentary at Dokufest 2011; Discovery Award at Filmfestival Cottbus; Best Documentary at London Short Film Festival 2012
- Flotel Europa (2015) — Archival feature reconstructing life aboard a repurposed ferry that housed Bosnian refugees in Copenhagen harbor during the 1990s war; produced and edited by Keča; premiered at Berlinale Forum; won the Tagesspiegel Jury Award, Special Prize of the Jury at Documenta Madrid, Best Documentary at Crossing Europe, and Best Balkan Documentary at Dokufest; described as “groundbreaking” by the Calvert Journal
- Museum of the Revolution (2021) — Poetic-observational feature following three generations of women who live in the shell of Belgrade’s long-unfinished Museum of the Revolution — a building meant to safeguard the truth of Yugoslavia that was never completed; premiered at IDFA 2021; won the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Documentary at Sarajevo Film Festival 2022; Best Feature Documentary at Big Sky Documentary Festival 2023; described as “engrossing” (New York Times), “wondrous” (Senses of Cinema), and “observational cinema at its best” (POV Magazine)
- 2023 — Museum of the Revolution, Best Feature Documentary, Big Sky Documentary Festival
- 2022 — Museum of the Revolution, Heart of Sarajevo (Best Documentary), Sarajevo Film Festival; HotDocs, Toronto
- 2021 — Museum of the Revolution, IDFA (premiere)
- 2015 — Flotel Europa, Berlinale Forum (Tagesspiegel Jury Award); Documenta Madrid (Special Prize); Torino Film Festival; IndieLisboa; Crossing Europe (Best Documentary)
- 2011–12 — A Letter to Dad, IDFA; Dokufest (Best Balkan Documentary); London Short Film Festival (Best Documentary)
- Video installations: Venice Biennale of Architecture; Whitechapel Gallery, London
- Sundance Institute grantee; UK National Film and Television School alum
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