Pottery-making at Zlakusa Serbia 1994 - RJC film8

Zlakusa is a village in the rolling hills of western Serbia which lies close to the large towns of Uzice and Pozega. Although it had been in decline, at the time of filming, with Serbia under sanctions towards the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, pottery-making had been taken up as a means of survival by some of those left jobless by national economic problems, leading to an increase in the number of potters which has maintained itself in the years following. Pottery at that time was made at Zlakusa in the traditional way, by hand-crushing locally quarried calcite and mixing it with local clay, forming pots on a hand-wheel by ring-building, then firing in open fires. Subsequently, kilns have been adopted, using designs based on those used by local urban potters, by all of the current potters and calcite is now crushed by machine, rather than by hand, which may result in a finer grade being used for pottery-making. The pottery from Zlakusa is exported throughout the country and into eastern Bosnia, being highly popular for its culinary use and as a symbol of surviving traditional culture,, thereby ensuring its survival into the next generation of potters.