The Balkan Melting Pot
2001; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 28; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1543-3404
Autores Tópico(s)Balkans: History, Politics, Society
ResumoThe Films Program of the 41st International Thessaloniki Film Festival Thessaloniki, Greece November 10-19, 2000 The Survey of the 41st International Thessaloniki Film Festival was comprised of 12 films, most of which were from ex-Yugoslavia, plus one each from Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Italy. A special program this year was the Balkan Survey. According to Michel Demopoulos, Festival Director, this program [sought] out new cinematic viewpoints amidst the turbulent landscape. In the Balkan Survey, my personal destination was the films from ex-Yugoslavia. Of course, there were some films from Serbia I had already seen, like Ljubisa Samardzic's Nebeska Udica (Sky Hook, 2000, Yugoslavia-Italy). At first sight, I was a bit surprised with the sizeable interest in ex-Yugoslavia's films. Sky Hook was not the only movie that has fueled the cinema and filled theater seats. For the screening of Goran Rebic's Kazna (The Punishment, 2000), Damjan Kozole's Porno Film (Porn Film, 2000) and Vinko Bresan's Marsal (Marshal Tito's Spirit, 1999) you could hardly find a place to sit. During the projections you could easily feel that the audience was breathing with each film. A lot of interest was aroused by the crises in ex-Yugoslavia. For the most part, outsiders had received tainted information that suited the policies of their governments. This information was therefore one-sided, and sometimes quite dissimilar from the realities. Seeking the truth, these outsiders probably expected to find s ome relevant references in these movies. Greeks in particular showed an interest as they cherish close ties with the Serbs. Both cultures have been built on common Byzantine heritage--a fact Greece recently demonstrated with their outright opposition to the 1999 NATO bombing campaign. Sky Hook is about Belgrade during the bombing. It tells the story of a family that is destroyed by circumstance and politics. The women are shown as being more connected to the life, and the ways of surviving. Tijana, the wife, suggests that the family emigrate to make a better life for themselves. Her husband Kaja, however, dreams of becoming a great basketball player in spite of the bombs falling around him. He says he wants to touch the in circumstances that have made the moon untouchable. In the end, the balloon bursts and his marriage with Tijana breaks. All around there are characters displaced by a fragmented environment: Turca, the refugee from Sarajevo; Siske, who suffers the constant verbal abuse of his embittered father; and Zuba, a cynical, world-weary tattoo artist who is trying to be the iron man, killing even the possibility of being in love. The other characters are trying to survive in their own ways, struggling to keep their worlds from breaking apart. The film is also interesting because it is the directorial debut of one of the most popular Yugoslav actors, the previously mentioned Samardzic. He is also the producer and the owner of the film's production house, Cinema Design. In addition to this, its screenwriters, Djordje Milosavijevic and Srdjan Koljevic, are both very young. Sky Hook was the only movie to represent Yugoslavia at the Official Selection of the Berlin Film Festival last year. In Yugoslavia Sky Hook received many prizes at national film festivals, but the critics were not so frenetic about its values. They said it played a very delicate game with the political subject, being soft on the regime of Slobodan Milosevic that was responsible for producing a lot of troubles during the past 10 years. Mehanizam (The Mechanism, 2000, Yugoslavia) was written by Gordan Mihic, the best known Yugoslav screenplay writer, and directed by Milosavijevic. The story is constructed around a hired-gun and his assistant, a former soldier recently back from the front lines. On their way to make a kill, the two meet an innocent young teacher traveling to a little village where she has been offered her first job in six years. …
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