zhel

26/09/2025

I Am In A World.
- Nothing has changed. Our silence permits the unthinkable.

from the album Ponte Rosso

17/09/2025

*Echo 2025 (4’10)*
Directed, Produced & Performed (music) by Željko Vukičević Zhel
Featuring Jadranka Đokić
Sound Mixing & Production: Blackhill

Eleven years after my two-channel installation Mute Departures: Stay Awake and Echo (2014), I revisited the material and isolated Jadranka Đokić’s performance from the “Echo” part.

The result is a recomposed piece with new sound and music, reflecting on how time reshapes both images and meaning.

https://youtu.be/_fK9ztirZbE
fans

Directed, Produced & Performed (music) by Željko Vukičević ZhelFeaturing Jadranka ĐokićSound Mixing & Production: BlackhillEleven years after my two-channel ...

21/08/2025

This is becoming more common, and it’s hurting artists.
If you want to support the musicians you love, go directly to their websites or Bandcamp. Yes, Bandcamp takes a small cut—but it’s nothing compared to what streaming giants do.

Streaming platforms are worth billions, yet they pay artists next to nothing. Imagine earning only $20–$50 a year for hundreds of hours of people listening to your work. That’s the reality. These companies rely on convenience and our complacency.

But think about it—would you accept that kind of treatment at your own job?
It’s time to push back. Support artists directly.

zhel.bandcamp.com

11/08/2025

Happy to announce that OPEN UP THAT ROBOT (2024) has been selected for the New Media section of the 30th Split Film Festival.
Premiered at Garden Cinema, Covent Garden, London as part of the ‘Trust No Thought of Mine’ omnibus, the film now joins a festival that has, since its beginnings, championed experimental, radical, and subversive works.

A subversive homage to Dušan Makavejev and Isidore Isou, OPEN UP THAT ROBOT unfolds as a sensual, absurdist manifesto: a woman eats a soft-shelled egg, sucks a shoelace, and shares a cooked egg—mouth to mouth—with a director. Between these gestures, slogans flare like cinematic sabotage: commands to misread, dismantle, and reprogram.

Emil Hand

12/07/2025

OK, you devilish creatures of July.
Sharing Portolan — a track from my unreleased 2004 album Happyend in the Lubberland, recorded in 2003 in London with Zenith Publishing in Cambridge, UK.
Originally written and performed for the opening of the Oprtalj Film Festival in 2000 — nearly 25 years ago now.

This version drifts into proggy electronica territory — spacier, a little more twisted — compared to the quieter, more ’60s-cinematic original. I might return to it someday in the future. In the meantime: give it a spin!

Shoutout to Suvi Leukumaavaara — her vision for a cover that never happened still haunts the track in the best way.

from the album Happyend In The Lubberland

03/07/2025

https://medium.com//thompson-i-odjeci-nacije-metastaza-jednog-mita-fea769d93534

Postoji onaj neugodni trenutak kad glazbenik komentira drugog — obično završi kao pasivno-agresivna ljubomora u A-molu. No, ovo nije…

17/06/2025

The latest project, Trust No Thought Of Mine (2023–2025), is now available on the website. Private viewing only.

https://zhel.net/video.html

24/05/2025

20/05/2025

I made The Soup in the midst of the second lockdown in London — the most inhumane, Orwellian experience I’ve ever lived through. And I’ve been through the Yugoslavian war, one way or another.

There was something inescapable about being forced to think only in micro terms in order to comprehend the macro world — but I suppose we learned that lesson.

My mum was a lab trooper; she handled it better than most, and we spoke often on the phone. Given her advanced age and the uncertainty of Covid, I feared I might never see her again. I made this track around that time and released it on her 85th birthday in 2020.

No song is ever truly about one person, and this is no exception. Still, I had this image in mind — a motherly ship drifting through some kind of soup of our existence, a flux of consciousness.

Now, almost three months after her passing, I’ve found myself remembering the moment the song was conceived — and the imagery from that time, which pushed me to think in big, existential themes. So, I felt moved to share it here again.

The Soup'written and directed by Zhelrecorded in London and Pulaaudio mixed by Blackhillvideo by Zhelzhel.bandcamp.comzhel.net

06/05/2025

Peeps, you can find me on Spotify. Just type Zhel and look for these wrinkles.

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3SSg5pKBpUS59TwsA9bnuM?si=7DPgl-1XSFabnTO1A_MoCw

28/03/2025

I had the honor of judging some truly remarkable indie docs for the 2025 NYC Independent Film Festival earlier this year. I focused on works that push the boundaries of storytelling while staying grounded in the emotional resonance only cinema can deliver.

The 22nd edition of the festival runs June 1–7, 2025, at the Producer’s Club in Manhattan. Hope some of you get to catch the selection on the big screen!