Who's Singin' Over There?

Who's Singin' Over There? (Ko to tamo peva, 1980) is a Serbian tragicomedy by Slobodan Šijan you can watch online on iFILM. On 5 April 1941, one day before the German invasion of Yugoslavia, a rattletrap bus sets off for Belgrade with a busload of strangers.

These are people who would never share a seat otherwise: a World War I veteran, a hunter clutching his shotgun, a hopeful young singer, a sickly silent man, a starry-eyed admirer of all things German, and two Roma musicians who keep breaking into song. At the wheel is dim, good-natured Miško, son of the bus's penny-pinching owner. Breakdowns, petty quarrels and small cruelties pile up along the road — and the audience already knows what the passengers don't: the bombs will fall on Belgrade within a day.

Šijan's debut plays as rowdy folk farce, then quietly turns into a requiem for a country on the eve of ruin. Serbian critics have long voted it the best domestic film ever made, and its mournful Roma refrain became a national catchphrase. Funny, bitter, and not at all where you think it's heading. Stream Who's Singin' Over There? (1980) online on iFILM.