ZAGREB: Croatian-born, Ireland-based visual artist Dragana Jurišić has entered postproduction with her debut long documentary The Last Balkan Cowboy / Posljednji balkanski kauboj.
Dragana Jurišić travels to the town of Bijeljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, to stage a short film in the style of a mythical cult Western director Hari Džekson. In meeting and casting the local community, she asks a fractured town and herself to confront the ghosts of the past.
”Hari Džekson made his films guerrilla-style, using locals as his crew and cast in the small Bosnian town of Bijeljina. He conjured worlds far from his reality and brought together people from different communities together to make amateur westerns for the pure love of filmmaking. As well as being a cult figure in the Balkans, Hari was a hero in my family history too. Hari and my father were close friends, and it was Hari who taught my father photography – the reason why I am a photographer today. The day my father heard Hari died was the first time I saw him cry. I have been wanting to make this film since that day, when I was 16 years old, to try, through the microcosm of Hari’s story, to understand what happened to Hari, to my country, to us all. The Last Balkan Cowboy is a personal journey through a country I was born into that no longer exists, following in the footsteps of a dreamer”, Dragana Jurišić told FNE.
The film is produced by Zlata Filipović and Anna Rodgers of Ireland’s Invisible Thread Films in coproduction with Oliver Sertić of Croatia’s Restart with the support of Screen Ireland, Coimisiún na Meán, RTÉ, Section 481, and the Croatian Audiovisual Centre (HAVC). The local producer is Zoran Galić.
This project is the winner of the Docs Ireland Northern Ireland Screen Development Pitch. It was developed within the framework of EURODOC 2024, and presented at both the EastDoc Platform 2024 and DOK Preview International at DOK Leipzig 2025.
The film was shot in 2025 across Dublin (Ireland), Slavonski Brod (Croatia), and Bijeljina (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
It is set to be completed in July 2026, with the world premiere yet to be determined.
Production Information:
Producer:
Invisible Thread (Ireland)
Coproducer:
Restart Croatia)
Oliver Sertić: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Credits:
Director: Dragana Jurišić
DoP: Eleanor Bowman
Editor: Paul Mullen
Composer: Michael Fleming
Additional music: NC Lawlor
Sound recordists: Hrvoje Radnić, Luka Mustać
Sound design: Luka Gamulin, Zoran Medved
