Valter Defends Sarajevo – The air shimmers as if the sky is on fire

The theme of the fight between the “good guy” against evil, about heroism and justice, was inspired by the real-life figure Vladimir Perić, and the legend about him has been watched by billions of people worldwide, both on the big and small screens.

In 1975, the film “Valter Defends Sarajevo” was first shown on Chinese state television. Since then, nothing has been the same. The main actor in the film, Velimir Bata Živojinović, becomes a living legend, more famous and beloved than Mao Zedong. The Chinese finally got a new character they could adore and identify with – a communist who, in an exciting action-packed tone, fights against the fascists!

Some claim that for a full 30 years, Bata Živojinović was more beloved in China than, for example, Josip Broz in Yugoslavia, and this claim was confirmed when Bata went to China, and when the Chinese visited this region, they longed to see their hero.

In this Yugoslavian partisan film from 1972, directed by Hajrudin Krvavac and written by Đorđe Lebović, Moma Kapora, Hajrudin Krvavac, and Sava Pređa, besides Bata, there are other actors like Rade Marković, Ljubiša Samardžić, Dragomir Bojanić Gidra, Neda Spasojević, Slobodan Dimitrijević, Pavle Vuisić, Faruk Begoli, Stevo Žigon…