The crew of the film ‘Lilacs’(Jorgovani), which is screened as part of the Main Competition Programme at the 52nd International Film Festival FEST, introduced itself to FEST journalists in the press room of the MTS Hall.
At this year's FEST, the lead actors Sloboda Mićalović and Ivan Bosiljčić, the director- screenwriter duo Siniša Cvetić and David Jakovljević, as well as the actors Gordan Kicić, Isidora Janković, Jovan Jovanović, and producer Zoran Janković and editor Slobodan Terzić spoke about the film, which attracted great public attention even before its premiere.
According to Siniša Cvetić, at the moment when producer Zoran Janković proposed to him to make a film with David Jakovljević that would have commercial cinema potential, a similar film with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard came out. ‘David and I were thinking about who might be a popular acting couple that would be interesting to clash in a similar way. Then we thought of Sloboda Mićalović and Ivan Bosiljčić, and we developed the idea from that. We tried to maintain the key of comedy, but we also introduced a bit of social satire and melodramatic elements, and that is how ‘Lilacs’ was created,’ said the director.
‘When we came up with Boba and Boske, the rest of the film kind of came up on its own,’ added Jakovljević.
Sloboda Mićalović recalled that 15 years had passed since the ‘The Wounded Eagle’ series, which launched her and Ivan Bosiljčić as an acting couple.
‘Precisely because of the great success of the aforementioned series, it was important to me not to repeat everything that the audience saw and what the two of us as direct partners achieved. It was a big challenge for me for you to see us in a different light, in a different relationship. For us to show another side: in terms of acting, everything you saw in ‘The Wounded Eagle’, you will not see here,’ Mićalović emphasized. ‘Everything is much harsher, different, more true to life, it was much more romantic and unrealistic there,’ she pointed out.
‘Not to mention the 15 years that have passed since ‘The Wounded Eagle’, ten days have passed since the last rerun. Does anything have a rerun as much as that series?’, said Bosiljčić jokingly.
He revealed to the media where Dušan Kovačević's famous line from the film ‘The Marathon Family’ - ‘Tišina, a sad malo ona’ (Silence, now it’s her turn) came from in the film, admitting that he had borrowed the line from the musical of the same name in the Terazije Theatre, in which he had performed together with colleague Gordan Kičić.
According to Kičić, who plays a director who is somewhat cruel in the film, the perspective of the duo Cvetić-Jakovljević is interesting, as they managed to create a delicate, cruel, strong, but also funny story about the reverse side of the job he himself does.
Producer Zoran Janković emphasized that from the beginning the idea had been to make a film that would draw the audience to the cinemas and that a series based on the film ‘Lilacs’ was not planned, but that he was satisfied that he had made a good film, which had broken out of the mold when it came to the series that were filmed today, and that the romantic comedy with which he came to the 52nd FEST stepped outside of the prevailing crime genre.
When asked by a journalist how the idea of a commercial film fit into the concept of an international film festival, the director-screenwriter duo explained:
‘When we talk about a commercial film, we keep in mind that it is a film that is successful in the cinemas. However, that does not necessarily mean that that film is not an auteur’s film at the same time. We approached this with an auteur’s perspective and this film has a slight cynical distancing from what is considered auteur’s.’
‘This is not a classic genre film, but a small experiment in how much we can adjust the film according to the audience's taste,’ said Cvetić.
According to the director-screenwriter duo, ‘Lilacs’ is a black comedy that depicts the face and the reverse of the film and TV industry in Serbia today. The premiere of the film is on 27 February (MTS Hall, 7.30 p.m.), and the audience can also see it on 28 February (MTS Hall, 12 p.m. and Cineplexx Galerija, Hall 7, 7 p.m. and Hall 5, 10 p.m.).
The film, as heard at the press conference, was named after a song by Dino Merlin, who gave permission for ‘Lilacs’ to be used in the film.
