Of course, it is best when artists, writers, storytellers, screenwriters, directors... first of all talk about what touches them and what they know best and feel and experience most strongly. But what will we do when that desirable pattern also leads to unanimity and uniformity, as, for example, in the case of the drastic Belgradeization of contemporary Serbian cinema. This scourge led to the fact that the landscapes and the world beyond Belgrade, which were already marginalized and slandered, and even placed under the roof of the truly insulting and horrible pejorative designation of Sub-Serbia, were almost completely invisible, and consequently difficult to recognize.
There is a lot in the fact that today almost a quarter of the population of Serbia lives and works in the capital, of course, part of the explanation lies in the quite legitimate individual worldviews of the filmmakers, as well as in the profile of students and future graduates at the first place of the Belgrade Faculty of Dramatic Arts, and many that and in the usually fatal overemphasis of the so-called urban identities, perhaps something in intellectual and other laziness..., but there are obvious truths in some life-practical facts. Such as, for example, daily allowances and increased filming costs (accommodation, food, fuel...) in cases where they take place outside of Belgrade, and this is not and cannot be an insignificant item in the state of affairs in which Serbian film in terms of budget and production in the sense that he breathes to a large extent thanks to artificial lungs and the help of the state and other funds.
Be that as it may, the consequences are obvious and far-reachingly disastrous - not only has Serbian film been well-begraded to the level of so-called uniformity in terms of visual, motive, thematic and meaning aspects, but contemporary Serbian film in the merely apparent dimension lacks scenes from the countryside beyond the capital city's sight. Let's not say that life outside of Belgrade in film stories is an almost completely extinct species. And the opportunities in the creative aspect were numerous. For example, at the beginning of the nineties of the last century, the Zlatibor episode of the escape of the main characters to To the black bomber Darko Bajić served as a striking enough counterpoint to the dangerous turmoil in the partially dystopian Belgrade. Then, a slightly melancholic depiction of the peaceful life of a great and now aged acting star (interpreted by Velimir Bata Živojinović) in a small place in To the shadows of memories Predrag Velinović from 2000.
For the sake of truth and for the sake of a more thorough insight, it must be admitted that even in these twenty years there were films, including authors, who consciously and courageously swam past that Belgrade current. Kusturica is in the movies of this century Life is a miracle i Zavet sufficiently inspired and vividly painted the world, landscapes and nature beyond our capital city, but since this author is a universe of his own, let's leave the two mentioned films out of the focus of this text.
For the sake of geographic-locational-interstate finesse, let us only mention here the newer and completely diverse Serbian films that, on one occasion or another, but also with this or that scope, narrate stories from the Montenegrin environment - Atomic right Srđan Dragojević, Red Milan Todorovic, Veto Tamara Drakulic, All northern cities Daneta Komljena, Biser Bojana Milan Karadzic. Predrag Velinović u Motel Nana and Milorad Milinković in the film Zduhač means adventure they reached Republika Srpska. The assembly in Guca served as a stage for a good part of the events in Gucci screenwriter and director Dušan Milić, while Goran Radovanović in his Enclaves came to grips with the serious daily existential trials of the remaining Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija (admittedly, this film was mostly shot in the vicinity of Valjevo).
Life in the Serbian countryside was outside the circle of film recurrences of the series The village is burning, grandma is combing her hair, problematized on several occasions, in realizations Led Modules Jelene Bajić Jočić, Goat ears Marko Kostić and quite solid Dying away directed by Miloš Pušić. And for the sake of clarity, the costumed screen adaptations of Stevan Sremac's works, Mir Jam..., as well as films from the universe of Vasa Ladački, that is, Sava Lađarski, and frivolous and quickly spent thrash creations such as diptychs must be abstracted. Peasants Dragoslav Lazić and/or Ringerai Đorđe Milosavljević.
Extraordinary Tilva Rosh, Nikola Ležaić's debut feature, definitely one of the best Serbian films in this part of the 21st century, gave us an excellent insight into the life of young people in the deindustrialized and so photogenic Bor; Oleg Novković followed that up in his belom, the white world, and Bor soon after became an indispensable address as a location for recording videos for hits and hits in the attempt of numerous Serbian entertainers.
(Nighboring) Vojvodina fared somewhat better - apart from numerous films by Želimir Žilnik, which, nevertheless, should be understood primarily as films with a clear ideological thesis, there is also Mina Đukić, who in Disobedient skilfully used the landscapes and scenes of Bačka as a striking background for the story about the hardships and sometimes also the ethereal beauty of the anguish of young souls and the later rebellions. Sabolch Tolnai is based on the previous model (films Sandstone and Strange Forest) showed an obvious determination to remain faithful to what he most deeply feels and understands in a geographical and thematic sense. The already mentioned Miloš Pušić is in his first full-length film, Realization Autumn in my street, wrote a fine and convincing love letter to Novi Sad in this century. In a rather strange and clumsy film Povratak Predrag Jakšić brought Hollywood B and C veterans (actors Michael Pare, John Savage, Nick Mancuso...) to the Bačka shores. Quite naturally, and a good part of Glavonić's Cargo takes place outside/or away from Belgrade, and the same applies to the unsurpassed extravaganza of the untimely deceased Uroš Stojanović, the film Charleston for Ognjenka, where the desperate pursuit of men is equated with the necessity of leaving an imaginatively designed and depicted dreamlike village full of more or less angry women.
It is necessary to single out three films that have completely transcended from the positions of the stories that, perhaps, only due to production and other conditions, do not take place in the capital. The film, which is superior on other grounds, went the farthest in that regard The life and death of a porn gang Mladen Đorđević, who fought with a harmonious, intelligent and extremely provocative and effective mixture of echoes of Žilnik's docu-fictional rapture and black wave heritage. Đorđević's heroes, both in the countryside and in the woods, at those ruined and remote addresses, will experience the same hell that caused them to leave Belgrade as a libertarian-provocateur paratheatre caravan. On the other hand, Ivan Jović is making his acting debut Healing completely displaced from any urban framework, and in landscapes of timeless beauty, its main character, a monk in search of silence and peace, will have to deal with life in seclusion in and around a small hermitage. An unequivocal urban sentiment, and far from Belgrade, more precisely in Bečej, she brought, on the other hand, Autumn of the Samurai Danilo Bećković's combination of sports comedy, action film and romantic and comedy nature. Among other things, in this second feature film of his, Bećković expertly introduced into the depth of the frame a depiction of life in smaller urban areas, where spatial closeness can also be a trigger for a somewhat claustrophobic crossing of life and other paths of the main characters.
On the sample of the previous and first months of this year, there are also low-budget films by young authors - neo noir Horizons Svetislav Dragomirović and the paranoid thriller Dogs die alone Nikola Petrović, thanks to whom we had the opportunity to see Banat and Tara on the big screen. In terms of announcements, this theme is coming soon to the movies My morning laugh Marko Đorđević, Strahinja Stefan Arsenijević, Father Srdana Golubović, May Day Mladen Đorđevića, Dark Dušan Milić, Cycling with Zoli Turkin Sabolcha Tolnai. Nevertheless, a good part of this story concerned the hunt for examples and references to the second, third...fifth decimal, which essentially cannot solve the problem of the frenzied Belgradeization of Serbian cinema today.
Theoretically speaking, the Film Center of Serbia (FCS) could launch a separate competition for this category, but it seems that this would only contribute to the forced competition classification (there are now also competitions for commercial films, for films with national themes, for debut feature films realizations...), with a fairly certain possibility that the authors will start to muddy the waters and simply "de-Beogradize" their initially "Belgrade" scenarios and projects, in fact staying distinctly far from that nebulous dream of local cinematography which, when Serbia cannot or perhaps does not even want to do it, would set out to meet a more unequivocal and true decentralization.
