Aleksandar Lazarevic: About people who created themselves

Several authors participating in the March Documentary and Animated Film Festival in Belgrade, which ends tonight, chose to portray the life of a famous person. Aleksandar Lazarevic is in the movie I'm staying here dealt with the life path of Igor Mandić, in the world of the famous photographer.

Aleksandar Lazarevic was the editor of the documentary film Children of Immortality who won the first prize at the "Golden Knight" festival in Omsk, is a lecturer at the Department of Film and Television Directing and Editing at the Academy of Arts in Belgrade, and the film I'm staying here stemmed from his postgraduate studies at that faculty.

While researching various concepts such as metamorphosis and analyzing the motif of hands in contemporary art, Aleksandar Lazarevic tells "Vreme", on the recommendation of a mutual friend, he came to Igor Mandić "who is far more recognized abroad than here".

Lazarevic notes that the main character of his film, among other things, collaborated with cult film director Peter Greenaway, and that he exhibited with world-famous artists such as Damien Hirst and Michelangelo Buonarroti.

He explains that the conversation with Mandić about his perhaps most famous work, the series with the motif of hands, "ended with the knowledge that his life story, unknown to a wider circle of people, is just as exciting to me as his work." That's how I decided that my film should actually be a study of his personality and not his works, that he actually created a new piece of art by himself. That's how I present him in the film, not as an artistic photographer but as a philosopher who deals with photography."

For Mandić, he was also interested in the generational connection. "We share some general common experiences of being born in a state that no longer exists, going through the materialization of nightmares in the nineties, all the way to very personal things - people who have created themselves as artists, a common relatively late discovery of art as a need for expression, relief..."

It tells that almost all the experiences that shaped Mandić as a person and as an artist were shaped by violence. "Firstly by the violence that was imposed on him from the family and psychological, through the violence that he resorted to as a solution for survival, to the general violence that we were all drawn into by the simple fact that we live in this space, in that time, and if we think about it, maybe even now ."

Lazarevic presented Mandić "as an epic hero". He took him "through places, real and cinematic toponyms (Sarajevo-Belgrade-Berlin) which in themselves, apart from a kind of itinerary of his journey, also offer a meaningful, broader sociological interpretation of the external influences to which he (was) exposed."

"I tried to answer whether there is art without the experience of suffering, whether art can be salvation... Through his experience, I try to answer that for myself, and offer someone else at least an example of victory or inspiration for action, for self-healing."

One of the possible readings of this film is that of "art as Mandić's main weapon." In an attempt to take his recipe for victory and apply it to our personal journey, we are faced with the question of what actually lies behind the horizon line, whether there is a moment or a place where one reaches the end, the ultimate truth."

"My answer could be that there is a final end, or if you want the truth - there is none." Just as it is difficult for me on a rational level to swallow the duality of real life, e.g. that there is no cleaner energy than nuclear energy, it is so difficult for me to answer this question. What are we really fighting against? Apart from my personal impression, that we have crossed the Event Horizon line, the point in space after which the inevitable entry into a black hole follows, I am not relieved to know that it was we who created this environment, the country, the relationships in it... and, quite consequently, this culture . Exactly as we are. Our culture is a very clear reproduction of the recorded image of our reality."

The title "I'm staying here" has well-known and current associations. Lazarevic says that with the title he wanted to offer breadth. "The title is my comment, attitude and message to the main character. It was very important to me to offer the viewer the key to understanding and reading the film as early as possible. Just like in an ancient myth, my ancient hero's journey ends with victory and a return home. His journey in the film is over, he remains here on a pedestal reserved for winners and works of art."

The March Festival has ended, a rare opportunity in our country to show a documentary film. Aleksandar Lazarevic says that this impression has long since been overcome.

"Documentary film has been on the rise in recent years, maybe even decades. For me, after 2004 and Michael Moore's victory in Cannes with his documentary Fahrenheit 9 / 11, that film genre was finally established as film art of the first order. The democratization of the means of production, their availability and spread, give everyone the power to record, interpret and create their own reality."

Lazarevic reminds that "the mechanism of perception and consumption of film and art in general is also changing. Streaming services, which initially supplanted television, are now becoming creators of content that is available to almost anyone, anywhere. Festivals, as a key place for the presentation and promotion of films, are losing their primary role and must find their new meaning anew. There is an audience, but now we need to find new ways to reach it."