Yugoslavia, 1973, 63’
directed by: Đorđe Kadijević
written by: Đorđe Kadijević, Milovan Glišić
cast: Mirjana Nikolić, Petar Božović, Slobodan Perović, Vasja Stanković
cinematography:
edited by: Neva Paškulović-Habić
producers: Branko Ivatović
Based on the novel Twenty Years Later by Milovan Glišić, The She-Butterfly is the first horror film made in the former Yugoslavia. Fresh bread is scarce in the village of Zarožje. The village mill cannot grind enough flour by sundown and nobody dares spend a night in the mill. Those who did, they were found dead in the morning. Searching for a brave individual willing to spend a night in the mill, the villagers approach Strahinja. Being poor and unhappily in love, he wants to leave the village. The villagers tell him that, if he becomes a miller, they will help him persuade Radojka, his love, to marry him. Strahinja accepts and goes spend a night in the mill, oblivious to the fact that nobody expects to see him alive any more. The central figure of the story is Sava Savanović, the legendary vampire believed to have lived in the mill.
Đorđe Kadijević, Serbian film director born in Šibenik in 1933. His first film Holiday (1967) is considered by many to be one of the best Serbian films of all time. Due to his 1973 TV film The She-Butterfly, he is best known as one of the first authors of horror films in Serbia.