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Olivera Katarina (; Оливера Катарина, ; born 5 March 1940), also previously known as Olivera Vučo (Оливера Вучо) and Olivera Šakić (Оливера Шакић), is a Serbia actress, singer and writer. She was one of the leading stars of Yugoslav cinema in the 1960s and the 1970s, and is probably the best known for her performance in Aleksandar Petrović's film I Even Met Happy Gypsies (1967), which won the Grand Prix at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival.
As a singer, Olivera Katarina has performed music of various genres, varying from Serbian traditional to Serbian pop, and in numerous languages.
As a child, Olivera Katarina attended piano and classical ballet lessons. In 1959, she went to Paris and enrolled the Alliance Française school in order to improve her French language skills. Olivera Katarina initially enrolled the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law before switching to the Faculty of Dramatic Arts. Among her mates at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts were Milena Dravić and Petar Kralj.
For a role in Goya or the Hard Way to Enlightenment in 1971 (as Olivera Katarina), she was awarded at festivals in Moscow and Venice. Her major success was in Aleksandar Petrović's I Even Met Happy Gypsies, where she played a gipsy singer named Lenče. Film was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 40th Academy Awards, for a Palme d'Or at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, and for Best Foreign-Language film at the 26th Golden Globe Awards. It won the FIPRESCI Grand Prize of the Jury at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival. Olivera closed this festival with a concert together with Nana Mouskouri and Dionne Warwick.
She also had a very prominent singing career. She recorded in Serbian language, as well as in Russian language, Japanese, Romanian, Greek language, Romani language, and Indonesian. She sang traditional Serbian music Folk music songs and Romani people/Romani people songs. In famous Paris Olympia she held 72 consecutive concerts.
In 1969, she participated in the national choice to represent Yugoslavia in the Eurovision Song Contest 1969 with the song "Poigraj, poigraj, devojče".
Olivera Katarina is also known as "the only woman Salvador Dalí knelt in front of", being amazed by her beauty and voice, after her concert in Paris.
In 2007, Katarina contributed songs for Marina Abramović's Destricted, and portrays a goddess in Uroš Stojanović's film Čarlston za Ognjenku.
During her time at the film academy she met journalist and quickly married him. The marriage lasted only a year and a half.
She then for seven years lived in a common-law relationship with the powerful Yugoslav Security Service (UDBA) operative and Avala Film chairman .
In 1970, Olivera Katarina married , an administrator who later became the president of the Red Star Belgrade football club, with then Mayor of Belgrade Branko Pešić as Šakić's best man. The couple's only son Mane, a painter based in Madrid, was born on 1 February 1971. Later in 1971, Šakić died in a car accident near Mladenovac. In an interview for the Blic daily in 2011, Olivera Katarina claimed she had not been in a relationship with a man after Šakić.
| Dobra kob | 1964 | Keti | |
| Belo u belom | 1964 | Unknown | Television film |
| One i on | 1964 | Unknown | Television film |
| Put oko sveta | 1964 | Rebeka | |
| Akcija inspektora Rukavine | 1965 | Unknown | Television film |
| Sigurno je sigurno | 1965 | Unknown | Television film |
| Ponoćni gost | 1965 | Unknown | Television film |
| Roj | 1966 | Ljubica | |
| Monday or Tuesday Ponedeljak ili utorak | 1966 | Marko's lover | |
| Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill Kommissar X – Jagd auf Unbekannt | 1966 | Bobo | |
| The Dream San | 1966 | Girl | |
| I Even Met Happy Gypsies Skupljači perja | 1967 | Lenče | |
| Mountain of Wrath Planina gneva | 1968 | Olivera | |
| Ima ljubavi, nema ljubavi | 1968 | Unknown | |
| Comandamenti per un gangster | 1968 | Unknown | |
| Do Not Mention the Cause of Death Uzrok smrti ne pominjati | 1968 | Marija | |
| Fräulein Doktor | 1968 | Marchioness de Haro | |
| Wien nach Noten | 1969 | Unknown | Television film |
| The Soldier Vojnik | 1970 | Milanka | Filmed in 1966 |
| Mark of the Devil Hexen bis aufs Blut gequält | 1970 | Vanessa Benedikt | |
| Ann och Eve – de erotiska | 1970 | Singer | |
| Ein großer graublauer Vogel | 1971 | Diana | |
| Goya or the Hard Way to Enlightenment Goya – oder Der arge Weg der Erkenntnis | 1971 | The Duchess of Alba | |
| Devičanska svirka | 1973 | Sibila | Television film |
| Polen Dust Polenov prah | 1974 | Unknown | |
| The Dervish and Death Derviš i smrt | 1974 | Kadinica | |
| Hell River Partizani | 1974 | Mila | Also known as Tactical Guerrilla |
| Hell River Partizani | 1974 | Mila | TV miniseries adapted from the film |
| Crveni udar | 1974 | Ana | |
| Zarudela zora na Moravi | 1978 | Woman | Television short film |
| Sedam plus sedam | 1979 | Olivera | Television series |
| Jelena Gavanski | 1982 | Lina | Television film |
| Vuk Karadžić | 1987 | Eustahija Radovanović | TV series |
| Tears for Sale Čarlston za Ognjenku | 2008 | Velika Boginja |
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