News

Press Report / Day 3

17.07.2023.

Luka Papić: "The archival material we used in our film looks like scenes from RoboCop or Prince of Darkness"

On the third day of the 30th Palić European Film Festival, on Monday, July 17, Eleonora Veninova, the director of the "Things Unsaid" and Goce Kralevski, the producer of this film; Frieder Schlaich, producer of the film "Seneca: On the Creation of Earthquakes"; Emma Skirmante, actress in the film "Sisters"; Maxime Berthou and Mark Požlep, directors of the film "Southwind", Artur Lakatos, protagonist of the film "Whose dog am I?"; Luka Papić and Srđa Vučo, directors of the film "Invoked", Mira Janjetović, actress in the film "More than Living" and Dejan Prpić, one of the founders of the film critics’ portal – Filmoskopija, spoke at the press conference on the Great Terrace.

Eleonora Veninova, the director of the "Things Unsaid" presented in the Official Selection, is also the writer for this production. About the film making process she said: "The original story for the script was written ten years ago. In 2012 I made the first version, which was in the form of a short story. Then I decided to develop it as a screenplay, which is my primary job. The first version focused on the story of a teenage girl, and then changed over the years. It took us a few more years to raise funds and apply for additional funds, so it was ten years until the premiere at the last year’s Cairo Film Festival."

Frieder Schlaich, producer of the "Seneca: On the Creation of Earthquakes" directed by Robert Schwentke, spoke about the author’s vision for this work: "Schwentke studied philosophy before he started making films. He was very knowledgeable about Seneca, not as a fan but more from a critical perspective. He considered him an opportunist, who at the same time preached Stoicism and was the second richest man in Rome. He was interested in that conflict. Also, his opinion is that if he makes a historical film, it must have something to do with the world we live in today."

Emma Skirmante, actress in the "Sisters" directed by Linda Olte, screened in the competitive section "Parallels and Encounters", made her debut on the big screen with this role. About the whole experience she said: "At the casting, there were 500 girls who applied for this role, and the selection lasted for three months. At first it was very difficult to get used to having camera pointed at me all the time. It was challenging". About her collaboration with actress Yveta Pole, who portrays her mother in the film, she added: "In the beginning it was very difficult to understand that you will be working with a professional actress, who is very famous in Latvia, but I learned a lot from her because she is a wonderful woman".

Luka Papić, one of the two directors of the film "Invoked", shown in the Special Screenings program, spoke about the genesis of this project: "In 2011, Srđa made an exhibition on a similar theme, which was called Voting Machine and where he covered all the elections from the introduction of multi-party system until 1997. Even then, he collected and sorted a large part of that archive material, and he had an idea about the film that should be made. I joined in 2017 and we concluded that we had all the elements for a potentially exciting and entertaining film. There are very colorful characters since the story is told from an outsider's point of view. We were more interested in human spirit than facts. The archival material looks like scenes from Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop or Carpenter's Prince of Darkness, movies we all love."

Srđa Vučo, the co-director of this project, spoke about the collection of archival material: "We worked in cooperation with the Media Archeology collective. For years, they collected that archival material from various sources, mostly from Beta and VHS tapes, which are very poorly preserved in Serbia. We also signed a contract with RTS, so they provided material from their archive."

On the fourth day of the Festival, on Tuesday, July 18, on the Summer Stage in Palić, the Official Selection presents the film "Ingeborg Bachmann - Journey into the Desert" by Margarette von Trotta (out of competition) at 9 p.m., and "Club Zero" by Jessica Hausner from 11 p.m. "Parallels and Encounters" section, at the Abazija cinema in Palić presents "Carbon" by Ion Bors (5 p.m.) and "Power" by Mátyás Prikler (7 p.m.).