The Lost Dream Team

The Lost Dream Team

Croatia, writer/director: Jure Pavlović

On 29th June, the Yugoslavian national basketball team spent their last moments on the throne of European basketball, their eyes transfixed at the raising of the flag, calmly listening to the national hymn, “Hej, Slaveni,” three days after the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had officially ceased to exist.

Production
SEKVENCA
Ivane Brlic Mazuranic 60, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
+385 98 789191; +385 98 559640
luka@sekvenca.hr; info@sekvenca.hr

Synopsis
Yugoslavia, late 1980s: an amazing young generation of sportsmen came to the fore of the national basketball representation. Marked by immeasurable talent and a great sense of comradeship, the multinational team comprised of Croats, Serbs and Slovenians made a name for themselves after crushing their US peers and winning the golden medal in FIBA World Junior Championship.However camaraderie is a difficult thing to maintain in a country made up of six federal republics. After winning European and World Championship in 89’ and 90’, the 91’ European Championship in Italy, once again proved the supremacy that the Yugoslavian team over the entire basketball scene. They opened with a victory, and did not halt until they won their third consecutive gold medal in a major competition. Meanwhile, the world had witnessed the final act of disintegration of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The war broke loose, stealing their headlines and putting an enormous amount of pressure on their multi-national constitution. What chance does a sport have in the face of such a difficult political match?

Note of intention, Jure Pavlović
The first time I encountered the story of the last Yugoslav basketball national team it immediately occurred to me that it could be turned into great cinema. It is not another one of documentaries representing “the truth” behind the collapse of Yugoslavia, but a depiction of the team players’ personal perspectives of the collapse. I find the task of elaborating the ways in which politics and war enter the lives of the players and affect their relationships and attitude towards the game the most interesting and challenging aspect of this theme.
Our primary means of constructing the narrative will be confessional interviews and the survey method while aspects of the disintegration of Yugoslavia will be depicted using archival material, foreign TV stations as well as news broadcasted in each of the ex-Yugoslav republics.
The main theme of the movie is the six-day period of the European Championship in Rome, 1991. On one side we have a powerful sports story – the pursuit for a trophy to alleviate the national turmoil and on the other we have some very humane, emotional stories and confessions – how do you keep on playing for the team that shares the name with your homeland's aggressor? To win? For whom?
What happens when you realize that no one really gives a damn about that country?

Note of intention, Luka Venturin
The Lost Dream Team is a documentary that tells the story about the Yugoslavian national basketball team on the verge of country’s bloody breakdown.
The protagonists of the film are 12 players and their coach that played on the last European Championship, where Yugoslavia as such participated. Many of them are considered to be the best European basketball players of all times and successful NBA players, like Toni Kukoč, Vlade Divac, Dino Rađa. They are all widely known, not just in ex-Yugoslavia but in most of the European countries and in the United States as well.
Part of the film touches the story of a never-happened match between Yugoslav Dream Team and the American original Dream Team, labeled by some as “the best sport team of all times”. In this part we would use archive that would show superstars like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson (and that archive would be directly attached to the story as we have some clips of them speaking highly about Yugoslav team as their biggest rival).