SOURCE: TV B92
DATE: 02. MARCH 2005.
TYPE OF BROADCAST: News
TIME: 19:47h
RUNNING TIME: 06:25 min
CONTENT: report about the film "Awakening From the Dead" ( Buđenje iz mrtvih ), screening on the 33rd FEST and interview with the lead actor Svetozar Cvetković.
Reporter: "Awakening From the Dead", directed by Miloš Radivojević is the first film from Serbia & Montenegro to have an opening on this year's FEST. The company of hand picked actors consists of Ljuba Tadić, Svetozar Cvetković, Anita Mančić, Aleksandra Jovanović and Ana Franić.
Reporter: "Awakening From the Dead" is the twelfth feature film by Miloš Radivojević. The director himself wrote the screenplay. The main character is named Miki; he is a disillusioned assistant-professor of Literature, an intimidated democrat and a sacked column-writer. He rises from his grave and turns to action after a lifetime of hesitation, indecision and doubt.
Miloš Radivojević: This film is based on totally personal experience and it has no demands, and I would be very unhappy if it would hurt anybody's feelings. This was not the intention. This is a statement, perhaps one dreadful statement. If it were not for the accomplices I found, the actors and Mr. Vladić, I wouldn't have been able to do a thing. They really put their faith in me.
Reporter: Radivojević reminds us that this film could be an autobiographical film, but not only of one person, but of all of us, our wasted years and burnt destinies. The film is a witness of one buried generation in this region that could really make the difference if it comes back to life.
Presenter 2: The guest at the desk, Svetozar Cvetković, actor in this film. Sanja Gluvacki is with him.
Reporter: Thank you, Ivana. Svetozar Cvetković, you are that disillusioned, fired, lost and at the start I have to ask you this: do you know of a single our urban film without a lost generation, or where the main character is not lost.
Cvetković: Well. I believe that there is a great difference between this film and the lost generation portrayed so far on the screen, since our heroes were always hindered in one particular segment of life. Whether it was their job, or, physically, or, I don't know... family life. While here, all the characters are completed, healthy, educated intellectuals. All of them have a great chance, but the surroundings that takes that chance away from them and therefore I believe that the interesting part is the way how an entire generation this, so-called "buried generation", is treated here, in an environment that simply does not give them the chance to be the best, and that is what they deserve.
Reporter: Your character rises from the grave and in 48 hours tries to make up for all the mistakes during his life. We won't reveal the way you come back, but are you really dead?
Cvetković: No, in a way, this looks like a SF story. But, it's far from that, regardless the beginning of the film, the rise from the grave. The director had tried through the main character to accomplish something that he wasn't able to, and to come back to his life, to try to fix things as much as he can, and to try somehow to get on with his life. We see how he gets on at the end of the picture, we see what happens with that attempt, during those two days in 1999, in the midst of the bombing. He tries to settle things from his past, with his friends, his past lovers, in his family and at the end with his father. The two of them engage in a deep and tragic conflict the very conflict that have pushed this whole country and nation to the brink of normal existence and finally, into all these wars that went on around us.
Reporter: Ljuba Tadić plays the father. Miloš Radivojević, after winning all possible awards with his previous film ''Ni na nebu ni na zemlji'' couldn't find money for his next project for whole ten years. Then, the two of you, along with some other people, went into an enterprise, and started a film company.
Cvetković: Well yes, that's the way it really happened. For eight years we tried to make a film out of one of his very good and important screenplays. It was about Goli Otok, and nobody has done it yet, and as it came out, neither have we. Then, two years ago, Miša sat down in Herceg Novi, wrote the screenplay for a month and a half, and came to me saying: 'Let's try to do this one'. We gathered a crew, there was Miša, of course, Radoslav Vladić, Nemanja Petrović, Korenlije Kovač and some other friends. There were eight of us at that point, we agreed that we should try to make this work, and with no help from the Government, we completely relied on our own recourses and our desire to finish it.
Reporter: You have some experience, you did the same thing in the theatre.
Cvetković: Well, yes. I do this for 8 years now.
Reporter: You managed to pull this out. Now what?
Svetozar: I certainly think that this should not be the model, this should be the exception that proves the rule. A group of people with artistic potentials gets together, puts an effort to it, and complete a real feature film for a real theatre. But this should show that people with potentials should be given not the chance, but guarantees that they could express themselves on the silver screen. Film is the only sign of times that will remain for the future - like Miša said today on the press conference, the history of this country and this nation will be remembered by the films that we leave behind.
Reporter: "Awakening From the Dead" will be shown tonight at the FEST, starting from tomorrow will be in cinemas, Svetozar Cvetković and Ljuba Tadić on Saturday in "Timofejev show".
CONTENT: Radivojević: Our children and grandchildren will remember us by the films we leave behind
BELGRADE , 2. March 2005. (Beta) - Our children and grandchildren will interpret us and our times rather more by the films we made, than by the things we see in the media, film director Miloš Radivojević said today.
On the press conference announcing the world premiere of his latest film, "Awakening From the Dead" on this year's FEST, Radivojević said that it is a diary of the previous ten years of his life.
"Since I haven't made a film in the past ten years, this is in a way, my personal diary. I had to do it. It was my desire to make all the readings from it and then to draw all the conclusions", the director said.
'In a way, we have all committed suicide in advance. We put the truth into a capsule and try to pass it on to the ones that come after us", explained Radivojević, and added, 'We have to come to terms with ourselves. Life is really nothing compared to what's going on inside'.
Along with technical progress, the film covers wider ground, but it doesn't go inside, where it is really dark, said the director of "Awakening From the Dead".
Actor Svetozar Cvetković said that there was an agreement among the cast, to get to know the director, and then try to come to life his "insides".
Living legend, actor Ljuba Tadić said that 'we still don't know what happened to us and where we are' and that the film "Awakening From the Dead" is of great importance, because 'the cause of all this must be identified'.
Asked to comment the fact that younger audience was leaving the screening, Radivojević said that he understands that, the youngsters are sick and tired with the stories about the bombardment, they want to laugh. Tadić said that 'it is not necessary to make all the films for younger audience'.
'They will come to their senses. We don't have the time' said Tadić.
Actress Anita Mančić said that she is certain that the film will be a success and that she is glad to be so "awakened" and very glad that she made this film.
'I hope that the younger audiences will return to the cinemas through this film, and not through films made just to pamper them' the actress said.
Art Director of FEST, Miroljub Vučković, said that, after many years without a domestic film, FEST finally got "Awakening From the Dead" by Miša Radivojević, and 'this is the best way to end this bad experience'.
Film critic Milan Vlajčić said this is a moving story of a personal experience, 'a story from the grave in which all of us have plunged into' and said that he was extremely pleased that such film was on the programme of FEST.
"Awakening From the Dead" will have its opening tonight in " Sava Center ", on 33rd Belgrade Film Festival, FEST 2005.
The story of the film is set at the beginning of the bombardment, in 1999. Miki is an unaccomplished writer, a disillusioned assistant-professor of Literature he rises from his grave and enters his own life, trying to accomplish after death all those things he didn't manage to do while alive.
Radivojević has made 12 feature films, among others "Dečko koji obećava" and "Ni na nebu ni na zemlji".
CONTENT: "AWAKENING FROM THE DEAD" THE BEST
07:45 Film critic jury has awarded "Awakening From the Dead" by Miloš Radivojević, the Best film award FIPRESCI on the 33rd FEST.
"The film of distinguished author poetry and strong director's expression in the view of the world we live in is awarded. This is the last of the films from the Serbian 'Black wave', a testimonial work, the first explicit political film about turbulent times that embodies hell" - is the statement of the jury, with the President Sandra Perović, member Vuk Pavlović, while the third member, Slobodan Aranđelović stepped out of the jury due to his disagreement with the decision.
(Danas)
SOURCE: NATIONAL TELEVISION, RTS 1
DATE OF BROADCAST: 02.03.2005.
TYPE OF BROADCAST: TV NEWS 2
TIME: 19:53
RUNNING TIME: 1:30 minutes
CONTENT: FEST holds screening of the domestic film "Awakening From the Dead" directed by Miloš Radivojević
Presenter: Finally, tonight on FEST, an opening of a domestic film, "Awakening From the Dead", new work of the Serbian film veteran, Miloš Radivojević.
Reporter: After a ten-year-long pause after his last film 'Ni na nebu ni na zemlji', a box-office hit in times of embargo and poverty, the director of a distinguished poetry, Miloš Radivojević comes out with his twelfth film, as a testimonial work, with all the features of the last remaining representative of the Serbian 'Black wave' and the firs openly political film. Sending us back to 1999, in time of the bombardment, Radivojević calls for moral re-examination, not only individuals, but generations as well. The main character, played by Svetozar Cvetković, attempts after his death to save his honour, and the honour of his environment. We have a metaphorically strong demonstration of complete hopelessness that has marked the past decade.
Miloš Radivojević, director: With this film I tried to look into my lying face, first of all, to remove my own doubts, and then, of course, to help other people.
Svetozar Cvetković (film clip): We are all different, we have the right to be different, but I must try to stay unbiased, truthful as much as possible.
Miloš Radivojević: It was like someone has said to me: 'here, make this last film, and then get the hell out of here', anyway, these are such times.
Reporter: Radivojević is presenting the struggle that goes on, not only inside the main character, but inside the whole nation through dialogue scenes divided by fade-ins and fade-outs, playing with colours that pale and then come back. There is no doubt about it, many will find themselves in "Awakening From the Dead".
MIŠA RADIVOJEVIĆ ABOUT HIS LATEST FILM
Director Miloš Radivojević, actors Svetozar Cvetković, Ljuba Tadić, Anita Mančić, Svetislav Goncić, Aleksandra Janković and music composer Kornelije Kovač have announced the latest film "Awakening From the Dead", yesterday, on the press screening.
A personal revelation, a story about the grave that we all have plunged into, set in time of the bombardment, but without a single bomb on the screen, because the director found that the dialogues and the self-examination down here, on the ground, was much more important...
'The film is based on personal experience, and I am sorry if I hurt somebody's feelings' says Radivojević, and then 'this is a sincere statement, out of a need for redemption and atonement. The cast had full faith in me. They gave themselves to me, with all their experience. Ljuba Tadić gave me a "carte blanche" and said 'do what you want'. This is my first film longer than two hours. I let it be "loose", I didn't want to reduce the scenes. They told me, it wouldn't be appreciated around the world, I don't care. Any reducing or fixing would ruin the film. All those realistic scenes "taken" from the press, that "bring the film down", like the dialogues between the father and the son (Ljuba and Cvele), I had to put them inside. "Awakening From the Dead" is my personal diary about the past ten yeas during which I wasn't able to make a film. It may be terrible, awful. I believe that I owed this kind of a film to me and to you. With the risk of being over-pathetic, I state that our children and grandchildren will make a picture about what was happening here, more from films, music and theatre, than from the official interpretations.
Milan Vlajčić - film critic
THE VERY HEART OF SERBIAN DARKNESS
Moving, deeply confessional film written and directed by Miša Radivojević, one of the highlights of this year's FEST, right beside the sharp moral drama "Vera Drake" by Mike Leigh
In the history of the Belgrade FEST, there were but a few domestic films, and usually they were just poor examples of wrong ambition and low quality. Fortunately enough, this sad rule is now broken. One of the most notable authors of the Serbian film, with aesthetics and style refinement out of the main stream (if something like this exists at all), Miloš Radivojević has made, after a ten-year-long pause, a moving, deeply confessional film - "Awakening From the Dead" (year of production, 2005, running time 134 minutes). Its superb language touches the very heart of Serbian darkness. As a populist media, film can be light-hearted entertainment, playing with ruling stereotypes.
But, on the other hand, when it joins the critical reexaminations of the past decade, full of moral downfall of the society (maybe we are not yet awakened, like the heroes in this film), then it is the ultimate challenge. For the author, as well as the viewer. The story of the film Awakening From the Dead is set at the beginning of the bombardment of Serbia , in 1999. A Professor of Literature, column-writer sacked from once-renowned newspaper close to the regime, Miki (excellent Svetozar Cvetković) rises from his grave like in a horror film, just to go back to his bed. In this ominous framework we find his family drama, a visit to his father living a lonely life in the country, meetings with friends and some other world. Everybody talks about the bombardment, about what lies ahead, but the sound of destruction just echoes in the background, like graveyard bells. We have the final dialogue with his father (superb Ljuba Tadić) where we see the nation tragically split into two halves, one half still worshiping "the leader". The clash between the father and the son, just like in "Brothers Karamazov". The realistic vision of the plot is, like in his previous films, distorted (tilting the base, fading colours, with the compliments to the cinematographer Radolsav Vladić). Radivojević has written the screenplay and merged the story with some bitter personal experiences and signs of a tragic period of our history. This film is not going to be easy for liking. From here you plunge into the dark night with a wounded heart. There is no such thing as an overnight catharsis.
REVENGE BY HUMILIATION
This was a first-rate festival event. Finally, a world premiere on the FEST. And of a domestic film, written and directed by Miloš-Miša Radivojević, an author absent from our cinema for a whole decade.
Encounter with this art film "Awakening From the Dead" certainly wasn't easy for the audience. On one hand, they had to cope with an unusual film form, closer to a film essay, even film recital, and the aesthetics of the film that would be more appropriate to the glory days of the Yugoslav "Black wave" of the sixties. On the other hand, they had to "swallow" the contents of the film, with all the bitter taste of hopeless and useless life in Serbia . The story of son killing his father, from one generation to another, like in a vicious circle of curse in this region, where the principal of revenge by humiliation is led to perfection. And after all, one of the best displays of Serbian mentality and its intellectual elite - incapable of taking the matter in it's own hands, of no use to a life in this country in which the best police informers and "contributors" to the files are the very closest family members, spouses, and friends.
"Awakening From the Dead" is also a very personal confession of the author, and many of you will not agree with him. However, this will not diminish the value of the film, and this was obvious last night, when "Sava Center" greeted with roaring applause Radivojević, legendary Ljuba Tadić (maybe his best role ever), and Svetozar Cvetković (in leading role and one of the producers of this delicate film).
It was the festival`s main sinema event. The triumphant return of director Milos-Misa Radivojevic, absent from the silver-screen in the last decade.
Facing Radivojevic`s “Awakening from the dead”, eye to eye, wasn't an easy task for the audiense. It`s an unusually constructed film, which resembles an essay or a cinematic poem. On the other hand, it`s a bitter coctail of despair and depression that governs life in Serbia through the last decade. It`s a spectacularly tragic story about a visions circle of an almost ritualistic patricide, which revolves through decades as revenge by humiliatton, shaped to perfection. It`s by far the most accurate and effective study of national mentality in Serbia , of its poor intellectual elite – incapable of assuming responsibility, taking things into their own hands, unwanted in their own country, where police terror reigns, and betrayal among closest friends and relatives is customary.
“Awakening from the dead” is an author`s personal confession, which will probably prove uneasy to digest by the majority of Serbian public. But, that won`t diminish its immaculate power, massively recognized by the audience`s euphoric applause in “Sava” center. The most applauded are Radivojevic himself, Ljuba Tadic, the living legend amongst actors, for maybe his best film performance ever, and Svetozar Cvetkovic in the leading role, who is also the producer of this remarkable film.
Dubravka Lakić - Politika
