Croatian students were the first!

Springtime: The New Student Rebellions covers student revolts beginning in the autumn of 2009, jumping from the UK to Italy to California to France to Greece to Tunisia. But as Verso reader Miroslav Andjelic points out, Croatia was already in the midst of its own revolt over the imposition of tuition fees in higher education.

And here’s the proof:

Blokada (“Blockade”) is a 90-minute documentary film on the student protests in Croatia—focusing on the spring 2009 occupation at the University of Zagreb—in what became the largest Croatian student uprising since the “Croatian Spring” in 1971.

According to the official synopsis:

The film chronologically follows the preparatory meetings of a group of students who plan to take over their faculty’s building during one week, the action of taking over the building by the students and the process of communication and the attempts of these students to communicate with authorities. After the initial week it becomes clear that the blockade is becoming bigger than its initiators and the method of blocking classes spreads to about twenty other faculties around the country, it goes on for 34 days and becomes the number one media topic in Croatia. The film follows the lives of the participants during the blockade, the conflicts between them and their uncompromising joint struggle, and finally the deliberation on the decision to cease the blockade and continue the campaign through other actions.

Directed by Igor Bezinović, Blokada is still in post-production and is set to premiere in early 2012.