Lukas Nola's latest film ‘Escort’ arrived at the 52nd International Film Festival FEST, and the audience has an opportunity to see it as part of the FEST 52 selection.
Actress Barbara Nola and director's assistant Nikica Zdunić presented the film of the recently deceased director, which will be screened on 29 February (Jugoslav Film Archive, Makavejev Hall, 4.00 p.m.).
‘I am excited, because it is a great honor to be at FEST. Ever since I was young, I have dreamt of appearing at FEST. I am glad that Lukas Nola's last film was selected for the festival, and even after his departure, he continues to live,’ pointed out Barbara Nola.
According to her, the deceased director fully completed the film ‘Escort’ in all essential elements, except for a small part of special effects. ‘Although there were doubts about it because of one twist in the film, Lukas, except for some small detail about the special effects, completely finished this film. He even approved the poster,’
she said.
‘Lukas combined genre and auteur films, played with different elements. The film has several levels; it is a drama, an erotic thriller, and a crime film. The film also has deeper philosophical views about sin, about punishment,’ said the actress and added that Nola had been an easy director to work with. ‘He encouraged the actors to be brave, to step out of their comfort zone. He influenced them to give their creation, and on the other hand, he had a solid concept, and authority and calmness,
which was respected on the set,’ she stated. Nikica Zdunić was an assistant director to her mentor from the university on the film ‘Escort’.
‘It was a great honor for me when Lukas Nola invited me to assist. I saw that a film set can be fast and fun and professional, and playful, and everything that a film set can be,’ said Zdunić.
‘He had incredible trust in actors, he chose very high-quality collaborators, he knew how to choose the best actors. And he let them give themselves. He gave them a lot of freedom, but he knew which scenes to focus on. The more delicate scenes, which have their place in this film, were prepared and filmed more carefully,’ she concluded. In the film ‘Escort’, written and directed by Lukas Nola, which was shown at the festivals in Motovun, Bitola (‘Manaki Brothers’), Luxembourg, and was awarded Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Art Direction at the Pula Film Festival, the actors are: Živko Anočić , Krešimir Mikić, Nikša Butijer, Hrvojka Begović, Igor Kovač, Hrvoje Barišić, Paško Vukasović, Lena Medar, Barbara Nola, Matija Čigir and others.
The director himself left a note about this film in which he says: ‘My personal helplessness in the face of violence and primitivism and the helplessness of the
people around me led me to write and shoot this film. The only constant of these two countries where I lived is arrogance, primitivism and violence (I do not mean physical, although there was that too) which dominates and determines almost all the rules by which this society functions. Not always loudly, sometimes covertly or completely imperceptibly. But present. And anger at myself for agreeing to it - that was my first impulse to write this story.’
