Book by Goran Marković and Rajko Grlić Did you record this? (Laguna, 2026) consist of public correspondence and column series which two film directors and friends published on the portal “Big stories”. In the form of a dialogue, they analyze life, art, cinematography, their own past and current socio-political events. Rajko Grlić (Zagreb, 1947) is one of the most important Yugoslav and Croatian filmmakers. He directed films He only kisses once, In the jaws of life, It takes three to be lucky, Caruga, Watchtower, Constitution of the Republic of Croatia... He belonged, along with Lordan Zafranović, Srđan Karanović, Goran Paskaljević and Goran Marković, to the "Prague school" of Yugoslav film authors (although Goran Marković will write a book The Czech school does not exist in which, of course, it shows that it exists, although in a very special way). In recent decades, he has been living and working between Croatia and the United States of America, where he taught film directing at the University of Ohio.
"Goran has some of his own darkness that he rarely expresses, and he sometimes wrote about it in those letters. He is intensively engaged in psychoanalysis, I think he was even declared an honorary member somewhere, because his books are based on it. Also, I discovered how much he needs something to really change here. Nothing changes here and he is really in despair for someone, it eats at him, because he really wants it, he needs it. On the other hand, he is one of the few who very clearly pronounces his position", says Rajko Grlić in an interview for "Vreme", while talking about what he discovered new about his friend through correspondence Goran Marković.
"VREME": Is a good education a condition for good directing, and then also writing?
RAJKO GRLIC: The Zagreb Film Academy used to have one good rule, which it unfortunately abolished: one must first graduate from university in order to become a director. Which makes sense. The Prague Academy had a condition that you could not go directly from high school to the entrance exam, because it was in January, so you had time to think, not to run right away. In Anglo-Saxon countries, it is often customary to go on a trip around the world after finishing high school. To try to understand that your house is not the whole world. We were brought up that way, that Prague showed us that that school is not just a movie. We were also lucky that history was happening rapidly in that period of ours, so we led a double life on the street, with all those writers, philosophers... And as far as writing is concerned, we have been writing screenplays all our lives, which is a whole tenth category. I call it "useful writing", for example: "Ivica goes to the forest, Marica follows him." That's how we first learned those "useful" sentences, and then they slowly developed into simple-expanded sentences. On the other hand, man has the need to talk. They don't let Goran film, so he found an outlet for his stories.
Are there any correspondence books you like?
Mirko Kovač and Filip David, Book of letters 1992–1995. It is a wonderful book, because Fića writes about the same accident as Goran, who writes to me. Eerily similar. Mirko and I were not in the same position, but we were "on the other side". But that text by Fica in which he writes about how he doesn't want to drown in all that, the honor of that man... Fantastic book. Otherwise, I think that Mirko Kovač's books, which he wrote in Rovinj, are stronger than those from the period before the war. The book about his father is beautiful. He was in good shape.
Your correspondence with Goran Marković covers the entire period of student and civil protests in Serbia against the Vučić regime. How does it all look to you now? Will Mr. Marković finally be happy?
I'm afraid he won't. Eventually something will happen, of course. But we are taught that changes always go for the worse, so we are not very optimistic. I followed what was happening here and had faith that something positive would happen. Study at UNIRSM spoke another language, they found a great form of telling misfortune, which is not daily political. There was some hope of those kids that they would be able to stay in Serbia. In Croatia, children are leaving en masse. No one complains, they just go... Everyone who has slightly better grades goes. It might look better than yours, but I keep saying it's just a much better packaged accident. You have raw, "hard porn". We have a "soft-soft-porn". You can't see the organs, but you can feel it when you're inside. That whole calamity he brought Plenkovic, who grabbed the very bottom and raised mud to power, those fools... These are semi-literate people who have faculties from the pump in Travnik. It's a big throwback to the unfortunate past. The church is behind it, of course. The government has canceled the elements of so-called democracy. It is in Croatia HDZ in absolutely all institutions. He holds the army, the veterans, all the population groups. Whoever wants money must somehow be part of the story. As far as I can see, it's even worse with you, it's really hard.
You mention in the book the script that you completely reworked with Goran a long time ago, for a domestic film, but secretly, so that the original screenwriter, who won the Golden Arena in Pula for that film, remained signed. How common are such "invisible" interventions in the film world?
That's called doctor script. I worked anonymously on two or three such films, once in America and twice in Zagreb. But here it was not as common as in America, because screenwriters are disenfranchised there. The producers are the owners of the script, and they are never satisfied, so the script goes through six or seven screenwriting hands. Something is taken from everyone, but the film no longer has any soul. Now artificial intelligence will settle everything (laughs). I heard that Disney is awfully close to making an entire feature film without human touch. Screenwriters tried to defend themselves, they were on strike for a long time. The rule they succeeded in obtaining is that artificial intelligence can write a script, but then it must go to a living screenwriter who has the right to refine it and sign it himself. I'm afraid that there will be a huge manipulation, because they will find kids who will sign it.
It's amazing that no one has made a film about Goli Otok so far, you both mentioned the idea in these letters. Goran was close, but there were no means or will. You once agreed with the writer Dragoslav Mihailović to make a film based on his novel When the pumpkins were blooming, but it didn't work. How is it possible, really, that nothing more concrete was recorded on that topic?
There is a Macedonian film that does not talk directly about Goli Otok, but shows that prison in stone. That's it Black seed Kirill Cenevsky from 1971, a great film, also won the "Arena" in Pula. I think now there is a generation of kids who have no contact with it. We are the last generation that knew anything about it. Me through my parents who were there, Goran doing research.
In one of the letters, you told an anecdote about Bogdan Diklić and your relationship with him, about how there was a misunderstanding, in a way. Have you sorted out your relationship?
We are. Although, I haven't seen him in a very long time, ever since that meeting scene that I mention in the book. I was supposed to give him an award last year at a festival to which I was invited, but I couldn't, I don't think I was there. He is a great actor, has monstrous concentration and goes his own way. We will not play anymore, unfortunately, we are old.
Your book Untold stories it went great, it became a regional bestseller.
Screenwriting taught us summary and brevity. There are great writers in Croatia, but no great editors. I always remember when I once went with Pekić to Mihiz, to whom he took a 700-page novel. And after four days we went again and this one gave him back 300 pages. Pekić didn't say a word. It's called being an editor. There are a lot of unnecessary words in books. I recently watched a film about a great American editor who "killed" writers, and they killed him, but fantastic books were born from those conflicts. It's the same with the movie. The kids get funds in the competition and tomorrow they go to film. Sulejman Kapić, the producer of "Jadran film", tortured me for a year or two with the script: "Let me write a new version." Those things need to mature and then things can get better.
How far has the project come? A miracle in Poskokova Draga based on the novel by Ante Tomic?
We received very decent money from the Croatian fund, we also received something from Europe. And now the film is in competition with four or five countries, because it is a more expensive project. Previously, Serbia was always a co-production for me, local actors acted as well. But Serbia has lost its cinematography. So we started fundraising, and I already have some meetings about locations. It is a complicated and difficult film, it will be shot in rocky hills. You need to prepare physically first, because I will be 80 years old during the filming.
Until now, I believed that you from the "Prague school" were the same age...
The oldest is Lordan Zafranović, and then there are Karanović, Marković, Paskaljević and me. The difference is approximately one year. Goran and Điđa were the first to come to Prague, then Lordan and I came. They hated us deeply because we were admitted directly to the second year. They had to learn everything about life there, and we got there because they passed it all on to us. At the end, Paskaljević also came...
One gets the impression that Goran Paskaljević was not part of your team.... Is that correct?
We all lived in the same college, except him. He rented the apartment privately. We all had some kind of professional or amateur experience before Prague, we had already filmed ourselves. He didn't. But we were together the whole time. After that we parted ways. But he did Free gunpowder, which is a perfect movie. The last time we saw each other was in Rijeka, when we all had a retrospective. We were together for a few days. He then bought an apartment in Opatija, moved there. Then he got sick...
You are a fierce critic of America and its politics, but you spend a good part of the year in Ohio.
This should be a book, not an interview, because I could go into a seven-day monologue. What is happening there is ugly, the collapse of everything possible. Obama was not a great president for the world, but he was fantastic for America. He raised the level of civilization, the country began to breathe differently. Then it all started to collapse with Trump. Since World War II, America has owed its progress to universities, because they were the base. And laboratories, technology, all patents... Everything went from there. And it was terribly financed. Trump first cut it when he came to power, in an attempt to return America to the 19th century. Of course, culture also suffered, he abolished all funds, as did Vučić. On the bright side, America stopped being afraid of him. He almost went to a basketball game, 20 thousand people roared. The streets are full when there are demonstrations. Trump is a sick man, everyone knows that. Harvard doctors found it in his first term, but now it has gone too far.
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