The short visual essay “The Carnival Masks” by the director Miroslav Sikavica immerses viewers in the noisy, rhythmic, and dance-filled atmosphere of the traditional local carnival. It builds a world of contrasts where ruins host the living heritage, re-enactments face archival materials, and ugliness and decay enhance the time of magical transformation and new beginnings. This film is part of the permanent exhibition at the Museum of Bećarac in Pleternica, Croatia, showcasing how this song permeates all elements of local life.
Bećarac is a lively, humorous, and often audacious folk song deeply rooted in eastern Croatia. While its decasyllabic couplet structure is simple, its content - rich in wit, social commentary, and raw honesty - is complex. It permeates everyday life and major celebrations alike, earning recognition by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
Muzej Bećarca_Vedran Husremović
One of its expressive forms, the bušarac, emerges during carnival time - a cheerful, often absurd song which, together with the clamor of bells, chains, and rattles, is used to ward off evil spirits. Paired with the noisy and defiant ruckus staged by members of the cultural society “Baranjski Šokci” in an abandoned castle, the found footage transports the viewers to another, historic reality captured in the 1970s. The result is a continuous interplay of the familiar and the strange, seeking meaning in the chaotic and the nonsensical.
The Museum of Bećarac was initiated by the City of Pleternica and supported through EU funds. It was developed by MUZE/MUSES, a Croatian company specializing in heritage interpretation, exhibition planning, and creative content development for exhibitions, together with designers ŠesnićTurković and Clinica Studio, and in close dialogue with experts and local communities.
Carnival Masks, stil