A great man is one who collects knowledge the way a bee collects honey and uses it to help people overcome the difficulties they endure - hunger, ignorance and disease!
- Nikola Tesla

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
- Franklin Roosevelt

While their territory has been devastated and their homes despoiled, the spirit of the Serbian people has not been broken.
- Woodrow Wilson

Nemanja Bala

Nemanja Bala (writer/director/producer) was born and raised in the former Yugoslavia. At the age of nineteen, he received a tennis scholarship to study in the United States at the University of Hartford, where he majored in film studies and began making short fiction and documentary films. His work has been shown on Serbian National Television and the festival circuit. While at Columbia University’s Graduate Film Division, he concentrated in screenwriting and received his MFA in 2006.

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His screenplays have been finalists at Sundance Writers Lab and Tribeca All-Access program. He often collaborates with his brother Branislav. Their latest collaboration, a feature film “Love Hunter” premiered at the prestigious Warsaw Film Festival and was “among its highlights”, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It opened in New York on November 14, 2014 and was among New York Times Critics’ Pick of the week. New York Times called it "at once fantastical and gritty… one of the most refreshing New York independent films." “Love Hunter” was invited to screen at the prestigious Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago. Kino Lorber, esteemed distribution company, added the film to its catalogue.


SA

 

People Directory

Vinka Ellesin

Vinka Ellesin was a folk singer who sang Serbian music in the sevdalinka style. The national Serbian community referred to her as the "Queen of Sevdalinka". She was born to Serbian immigrants, Djoka and Sophia (Soka) Ellesin, in Akron, Ohio around 1921. By the age of 16, she was singing on a nationally broadcast radio show on WADC. Later, she performed at the Black Whale, a well-known club in Cleveland. In 1938, the bandleader Sammy Kaye invited her to audition to be the lead vocalist in his orchestra, but she turned him down, preferring to continue singing Serbian folk music instead. During World War II, Ellesin performed at the Blue Danube and the Russian Samovar in Detroit, Mich. where she lived. Ellesin stayed in the Pittsburgh area for an extended period of time in the early 1950s while she performed nightly at the Sunrise Inn in Monroeville, Pa. During the 1930s through the 1970s, Ellesin toured throughout North America and Australia while returning to Pittsburgh many times to perform at local Serb National Federation events.

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Publishing

God Views Us Through Love

by Ignatije (Midic), bishop of Branicevo-Pozarevac

The present volume collects essays and articles written by Bishop Ignatije on man within history and within the Church; on the roots of the Church according to Saint Maximus the Confessor; on how God views us through love; about a call to rediscover our true self in our neighbor; on reconciliation in society and policy; on iconising that which is to come seen in the Iconography of Stamatis Skliris.