The Hand of Justice: Pavelic Film Premieres in Thessaloniki

In Buenos Aires, two decades after fleeing the war, a man who once wore the uniform of the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland (JVuO) learns that the leader of the Ustasha movement is alive, in the same city, within arm’s reach. That is the moment where “The Hand of Justice” opens, the film from director Nemanja Ceranic, which today received confirmation that it will have its world premiere in the competition program of the 67th Thessaloniki International Film Festival, one of Europe’s oldest.

The film’s central character, according to the producers, is Blagoje Jovovic, a JVuO member who survived the war and spent the rest of his life in Argentina. When he discovers that Ante Pavelic is living in Buenos Aires, he decides to deliver, on his own, the punishment that official justice never handed down. Some earlier announcements referred to the title in the plural, “The Hands of Justice,” but the production has consistently used the singular.

The film is directed by Nemanja Ceranic, with Nebojsa Pajkic as co-director, while the screenplay is credited to Mirko Stojkovic, Strahinja Madzarevic and Pajkic himself. It is produced by TS Media and Tracktor Production, with support from Film Center Serbia. The cast includes Aleksandar Gavranic, Zlatan Vidovic, Tamara Ristoska, Igor Borojevic, Samuel Finci, Mladen Nelevic, Lucas Ferraro, Miodrag Krcmarik, Sladjana Zrnic, Jovan Savic and Ljubisa Savanovic.

This year’s Thessaloniki festival marks its 67th edition and is regarded in the region as comparable in stature to Sarajevo or Karlovy Vary, which makes a place in the main competition a rare showing for domestic production outside its home turf. The angle of the story works in the festival’s favor: historical thrillers about the hunt for war criminals usually follow an investigator or a court, but here the driving force is an ordinary man who decides to pass judgment himself where institutions never even tried. That personal, self administered justice, and the moral price it carries, is the point where the film stops being a plain reconstruction of events and becomes a question about the line between revenge and justice, framed through the fate of a man who crossed that line alone.

The crew filmed on locations spanning Serbia to Argentina, which the producers describe as an undertaking of rare scale for a domestic production, two continents and two historical eras joined in a single story. Production on that scale rarely accompanies films outside major co productions, which is likely part of why Thessaloniki is treating this title as a serious contender for the competition rather than an out of competition guest entry.

The festival has not yet announced the exact date of the Thessaloniki screening. Domestic audiences will get to see the film before the end of the year, at a premiere announced for the Sava Centar in Belgrade, where it will become clear whether the story of Jovovic and Pavelic carries the same weight on the big screen that it carries on paper.