Credits

Regie

Mladen Djordjevic

Cast

Tamara Krcunovic, Leon Lucev, Momo Picuric, Lidija Kordic

Genre

drama

Speelduur

127 minuten

Land

Servië

Taal

Servisch

Ondertiteling

Engels

Storyline

In a small Serbian town, after losing their loved ones, jobs and dignity to a tragic factory fire and corrupt privatisation, a group of ex-workers seeks hope and justice in the supernatural. 

 Serbian maverick director Mladen Djordjevic (The Life and Death of a Porno Gang) returns with another uncompromising, wildly imaginative and transgressive mix of genre and social drama. In a forgotten factory town, a group of ex-workers, led by fearless, middle-aged Ceca (Tamara Krcunovic), are struggling to find hope and justice after a tragic fire and corrupt privatisation have robbed them of their jobs, loved ones and dignity. A former convict (Croatian star Leon Lucev) appears to offer a way out through ancient magic rituals, immersing them in the otherworldly and striking a relationship with Ceca where the sexual mixes with the religious and supernatural. Djordjevic once again brings people from the margins to the forth and gives them a voice, denouncing destructive policies of the Serbian government and questioning the role of spirituality and its flipside in the lives of ordinary people who have been downtrodden for decades. It’s an immersively dark film infused with black humour, mixing established actors with non-professionals in a meticulously designed, decrepit setting that itself plays a key role. 

DIRECTOR’S BIO 

Mladen Đorđević’s debut feature fiction film “The Life and Death of a Porno Gang” (2009) was presented at over 50 international festivals, winning 14 awards. Mitch Davis, a selector of the Festival Fantasia in Montreal, compared Đorđević with authors such as Gaspar Noe, Lars von Trier and Michael Haneke, writing that “The Life and Death of a Porno Gang” did for Serbia what “Clockwork Orange” did for Great Britain. He was born in 1978 in Belgrade. He graduated Film & TV Directing at the Faculty of Drama Arts in Belgrade with the feature documentary film “Made in Serbia”, which later premiered at Belgrade Film Festival FEST and went into cinema and DVD distribution in Serbia. He directed several short films (“Living Dead”, “Hunger”, “Shaving Foam”) and documentaries (“Ali Hamad’s Story”, “Straight Through the Wind”). Đorđević wrote and directed one of the stories in the omnibus film “Equals” (2014), which premiered at the Sarajevo FF and docudrama “Vienna Hallways” (2020).

More information: easternneighboursfilmfestival.nl