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DAY 5
Saturday 18 May 2019

FIVE FILMMAKERS TO WATCH

SRDJAN KEČA and director had two fi lms at the 2019 Berlinale:
as the DOP on Angela Schanelec’s Silver Bear
Documentary director, producer and editor whose winner I Was at Home, But and co-director of the
fi lms A Letter to Dad, Mirage, and Escape screened at Forum title From Tomorrow on, I Will with Chinese
festivals such as IDFA, DOK Leipzig, and Full fi lmmaker Wu Lingfeng. He is now working as
Frame. Flotel Europa, which he produced and DOP on the new projects by Schanelec and Salatić FIVE UPCOMING FILMS
edited, premiered at the 2015 Berlinale, winning and preparing his second feature, Ios.
the Tagesspiegel Jury Award. He is now directing
and producing Museum of the Revolution, a MILICA TOMOVIĆ USERS
co-production with Croatia, which won awards at Fiction • Director, writer: Ivan Ikić • Cast: Maruša
East Doc Platform and ZagrebDox Pro and is Th e screenwriter and director whose short Majer, Goran Bogdan, Valentino Zenuni, Tijana
expected to be released in May 2020. fi lm Transition was a hit on the festival Marković, Marijana • Production: Sense Production
circuit and brought her the Heart of Sarajevo (Serbia), Tramal Films (Slovenia), Kepler Film
JELENA MAKSIMOVIĆ for Best Short Film in 2016, is in post-production (Netherlands), Les Films D’Antoine (France)
with the highly anticipated feature debut Celts. • Synopsis: A love triangle between two girls and a
One of the most wanted Serbian editors, whose Set in Belgrade in 1993, when Serbia was boy, users of the Home for Children and Youth with
recent credits include the Cannes title e Load by at war and under UN embargo, it follows Special Needs. In a system with strict rules of conduct,
Ognjen Glavonić, Ivan Salatić’s Venice Critics Week a middle-aged housewife burdened with the teenagers’ emotions erupt, driving them to an
entry You Have the Night, and Mladen Kovačević’s day-to-day chores who discovers masturbation emancipation from it.
• Expected release: 2020
Visions du Reel prizewinner 4 Years in 10 Minutes, after a full year without sex with
debuted last year as director with feature-length her husband.
documentary Taurunum Boy, recently awarded at MAMONGA
ZagrebDox. In addition to editing new fi lms by ČARNA VUČINIĆ Fiction • Director: Stefan Malešević
Kovačević, Marta Popivoda (see Upcoming Films), • Writers: Stefan Malešević, Zorica Milisavljević,
and feature debuts by Milica Tomović and Dušan Th e young producer known for acclaimed Simon Marić • Cast: Marta Bjelica, Dražen Pavlović,
Kasalica, she is preparing her second fi lm as short fi lms by Dušan Zorić, Foreign Body Nabi Tang, Vuk Janošević • Production: Nana 143
director, Winds Erase the Sound. (2018, Biennale de Venezia, Zagreb (Serbia), SFA, Slovo Film (both Bosnia and
Film Festival) and Love (2017, Visions du Reel, Herzegovina), Code Blue Production (Montenegro)
IVAN MARKOVIĆ Sarajevo Film Festival) is now in pre-production • Synopsis: A modern triptych with fragmented
with the feature Metamorphoses, co-directed dramaturgical structure, connected by the characters of
After lensing Ivan Salatić’s You Have the Night, the by Zorić and Matija Gluščević (see Upcoming two adolescents from a bleak, patriarchal Bosnian town,
Belgrade-born and Berlin-based cinematographer Films). haunted by a trauma that happened 10 years ago.
• Expected completion: May 2019
incentives are the Chinese feature Belgrade Escape and All this led to a tectonic shift in the Serbian theatrical market, IN THE PRAISE OF LOVE
India’s Crimson Red Sky by Mani Ratnam, as well as Uri: The with Hollywood majors’ share in 2018 dropping to only
Surgical Strike, starring Vicky Kaushal. 51.5%. This also means an increased share for local films on Documentary • Director, writer: Tamara Drakulić
• DOP: Tamara Drakulić, Igor Djordjević
Serbia’s profile as a shooting destination could be boosted by one hand, and independent and European titles on the other, • Editors: Jelena Maksimović, Tamara Drakulić
the return of Belgrade’s Avala Studios. Now it has new owners: which now account for around 19% of the market each. • Production: Monkey Production (Serbia)
Czech company Sebra and Hong Kong-registered Feel Max, But this is hardly the most important increase the Serbian • Synopsis: Repetitive life cycles of a dying village in
who announced an investment €50m with the aim of reviving film industry saw in the last year. Crucially, public funding the Mexican desert, its myths and historical details,
the facilities. If this indeed goes through under the CEO Peter available for local films, either a purely national productions are intertwined with a performance of Romeo and Juliet
Dajko and director of development Vladimir Kuba, formerly or both majority and minority co-productions, jumped 49% by local teenagers.
of Prague’s Barrandov Studios, Serbia’s competitiveness in the compared with 2017, to total of €7.6m. • Expected completion: December 2019
field could skyrocket. The number of films produced soared from 2017’s 28 feature-
It’s already common knowledge that Serbian films do well at length fiction and documentary movies to 37 in 2018, with
home upon local theatrical release. This was again the case in minority co-productions rising from three to 11. The latter RESISTING LANDSCAPES
2018, with Miloš Avramović’s crime-action-comedy South included high-profile films such as Angela Schanelec’s Silver (AKA FREEDOM LANDSCAPES)
Wind selling more than 600,000 admissions and earning Bear winner I Was at Home, But, Montenegrin filmmaker Ivan Documentary • Director: Marta Popivoda
€1.7m, while Petar Ristovski’s World War I epic King Peter Salatić’s Venice Critics Week entry You Have the Night (both • Writers: Ana Vujanović, Marta Popivoda
the First racked up 166,001 admissions. They were joined lensed by Serbian DOP Ivan Marković), and Greek director • DOP: Ivan Marković • Production: eory at Work
early this year by Miroslav Stamatov’s comedy Taxi Blues, Nikos Labôt’s Toronto title Her Job. (Serbia), Bocalupo Films (France), Marta Popivoda
which has sold 248,726 tickets after seven weeks on release As for the international prominence of Serbian majority (Germany) • Expected completion: Early 2020
in 2019, and its tally stands at €763,253 at the moment of productions, by far the biggest contribution came from • Synopsis: A voyage through the landscapes of the
writing this article. Ognjen Glavonić’s The Load which world-premiered in vanishing memory of Sonja, the rst WWII partisan
Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and went on to win a slew awards woman in Serbia and a member of the Resistance at
THE RUSSIAN CONNECTION at festivals including Sarajevo, Cottbus, Haifa, Ljubljana, Auschwitz. Her story travels trough time towards a
A more interesting phenomenon is the popularity of new Marrakech, Trieste and Zagreb. new generation of anti-fascist activists today.
Russian films among Serbian audiences. A number of Serbian Early 2019 saw two Serbian films grab attention at the
actors have been starring in Russian films, namely Milan Berlinale, with Miroslav Terzić’s drama-thriller Stitches world- METAMORPHOSES
Marić in the Berlinale 2018 competition entry Dovlatov, and premiering in Panorama and placing second in the race for Fiction • Directors, writers: Dušan Zorić, Matija
hearthrob Miloš Biković in the figure skating-themed the audience award, and docu-fiction hybrid From Tomorrow Gluščević • Cast: Ksenija Marinković, Radoje Čupić,
blockbuster Ice (Lyod), which added some €347,504 from on, I Will, co-directed by Ivan Marković and China’s Wu Bojan Žirović, Olga Odanović, Nenad Ćirić, Isidora
its Serbian run to its €23.7m it made at home. And at the Linfeng bowing in Forum. Simijonović • Production: Non-Alligned Films
moment, Biković is killing it at the box office in the Russian- One industry field is not improving though: independent and (Serbia) • Status: In pre-production
Serbian co-production The Balkan Line, an action war film arthouse exhibition. European, world and documentary • Synopsis: This doppelgänger drama with elements of
based on a true event from the 1999 Kosovo War, with several cinema is basically represented only at festivals. However, all fantasy in three chapters follows middle-aged Draginja,
popular Serbian actors and even Emir Kusturica appearing in other elements accumulated indicate a general upward as she evolves from story to story, changing her
a side role. Hitting on the patriotic notes and the mythical movement in the Serbian film industry, with new character in order to achieve happiness and belonging.
Serbian-Russian brotherhood, the film has sold 236,527 opportunities opening up from Hollywood to Bollywood to
tickets in Serbia in five weeks. China.✦

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NEWS