Based on the testimonies of more than 30 interviewees, officers, servicemen and volunteers who were members of the 549th Motorized Brigade, we described the events about the battle fought in the region of Mount Paštrik. The reconstructions and dramatizations of events were filmed on mountain ranges around Dimitrovgrad, Pirot and Niš and at the Pasuljanske Livade proving ground. The battle of Paštrik was the second part of the land offensive that KLA terrorists tried to execute in cooperation with NATO forces and regular Albanian army units from the direction of the Republic of Albania toward Kosovo and Metohija in 1999. When it became clear that the Košare offensive did not yield results and that they could not break the defense of the Yugoslav army in that region, KLA launched an attack on Mount Paštrik near Prizren. Like in Košare, the goal was for the KLA forces from Albania to join the KLA forces in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija. The Operation Arrow 2, as Albanian and NATO planners named it, began on May 26th and ended on June 14th, when the Yugoslav army retreated from the territory of Kosovo and Metohija after the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement. The enemy failed to achieve its goal and break the line of defense of the 549th Motorized Brigade. The Yugoslav army was undefeated on Paštrik. Moving stories of surviving soldiers of the 549th Motorized Brigade, the only unit exposed to carpet bombing by NATO’s strategic aviation, were illustrated using authentic archive videos of Associated Press. The videos were made on the territory of Albania. We also used the recordings of our own reporter, made after the bombing, as well as photos which soldiers took themselves. The documentary follows events chronologically from the attack on Gorožup outpost until the retreat of our army after the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement. Although the enemy tried to defeat our units by heavily attacking and bombing them, there were no substantial material losses. Twenty-six members of the 549th Motorized Brigade died on the front line, while the losses of KLA were almost 20 times greater.
The film was made in coproduction of the Radio-Television of Serbia and the Zastava Film military film center. Slađana Zarić is the author of the film and the following persons also participated in its production: Petar Vujanić and Žarko Pekez – directors of photography, Bojan Perišić – editor, Snežana Rodić Sinđelić and Lieutenant Colonel Goran Ikonić – producers, Vesna Ilić – journalist, Bojan Mangović – sound designer and Vladimir Tošić – composer.
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