On Tuesday, June 15, the famous Yugoslav actor Bekim Fehmiu decided to leave. In his apartment on Zvezdara in Belgrade, he committed suicide at the age of 75.
The legendary Beli Bora from the film "Feather Gatherers" by Saša Petrović was the first Albanian academic actor in SFRY. Critics and historians of film art rate him as an actor who changed the history of our cinematography. He was born in 1936 in Sarajevo, and his family also lived in Djakovica and Shkoder. He played in 41 films and in countless plays throughout Yugoslavia. After "Feather Gatherers" achieved huge success at the Cannes Festival in 1967, his international career began. He was the only actor from Eastern European countries who filmed in the West. He had a long-term contract with the Italian producer Dino de Laurentiis, collaborated with John Huston, Olivia de Havilland, Ava Gardner, Dirk Bogart, Charles Aznavour, Irene Pappas, Claudia Cardinale, Candice Bergen... He lived the life of a big acting star, but far from it that his life was easy. Apart from the political persecution suffered by his father and grandfather, with the beginning of Serbian-Albanian friction, he remained silent and withdrew from the public, as a sign of protest. In 1987, he gave a farewell interview to "Politics" and then remained silent until 2001, when he published a book of memories, "Blistavo i strabeno". In the same year, he gave an interview to "Vremen" in which he described his decision as follows: "All those phone calls from Triglav to Đevđelia after the farewell interview in 'Politica' in April 1987, praise for courage, congratulations, meant nothing to me." My premonition, a warning, especially with Dušan Vasiljev's poem 'Man sings after the war', which says, 'I was treading in blood up to my knees and I have no more dreams...' and ends with 'Oh give me, just a handful of rays, and a little white morning dew, the rest to your honor', meant nothing. I achieved zero, one absolute zero in the atmosphere of the rider of the apocalypse, having gone through great mental suffering. I achieved that, like Stefan Zweig in 'The World of Yesterday', isolation, loneliness. It made me write down further memories."
Bekim Fehmiu, apart from his many masterfully played roles, will be remembered as the embodiment, if not of something ephemeral and elusive such as morality, then certainly of principle and devotion to his own ideals. One of the symbols of Yugoslavia from its golden age, he never, in the name of brotherhood and unity, and then Yugoslav nostalgia, ran away from his Albanian origin, he was both: an Albanian, a Yugoslav, above all an artist, and above all a man. Many heavy historical carts broke on him, on his personal destiny, but even the way he left shows that he remained the master of his destiny until the end. Just as he had made up his mind to retire until the madness passed, so now he made up his mind to go, not waiting for chance to make such a decision for him. Those who during his lifetime respected what he said and did, now remain to respect this, his last decision.
