News

Press Report / Day 4

18.07.2023.

Langston Uibel: Working with Christian Petzold is an amazing experience

On the fourth day of the 30th Palić European Film Festival, on Tuesday, July 18, Langston Uibel, actor in the film "Afire"; Klára Vlasáková, screenwriter for the film "Ordinary Failures"; winners of the AFIFS award, the crew of the film "Have you seen this woman?" - directors Dušan Zorić and Matija Gluščević, and producer Čarna Vučinić; co-producers of the film "Snow and the Bear" - Miloš Ivanović and Andrijana Sofranić Šućur; Mirona Radu from the ABIFF Festival; Valentin Urziceanu, director of the film "Close Enough"; Frederic Cornet from Europe Cinemas; Boban Stefanović, president of the Board of Directors of the Serbian Cinema Screeners Network, author of the exhibition "Mija Aleksić - Being an Actor" and co-organizer of the Seminar "Innovations in the Cinema Industry - European Perspectives of Serbian Cinemas"; Đorđe Bajić and Zoran Janković, authors of the book "Critical Guide to Serbian Film 2018-2022" and Saša Radojević, author of the book "Serbian Film: The Fifties", spoke at the press conference on Great Terrace.

Langston Uibel, an actor in the film "Afire", screened in the Official Selection, spoke about his collaboration with the director of this production: "I met Christian Petzold a year before the start of filming, so I had that much time to prepare for the role. Working with him is an amazing experience. Christian has created a very special way of filming over the years and we had a lot of time to shoot our scenes. The key word is safety - he really has a feel for creating a safe creative space, where everyone in the room can bring in the best version of him or her.

Klára Vlasáková, screenwriter for Cristina Grosan's film "Ordinary Failures", screened in the "Parallels and Encounters" section, spoke about the inspiration for the plot of this production: "One of the three main characters is Hanna, a woman in her sixties, and she has a strange robot - the dog that left behind by her deceased husband. She is not sure exactly what kind of relationship she has with this unusual pet. The root of this story is a newspaper article about robot dogs in Japan: the company that produced them stopped producing spare parts, so they began to "die", and their owners buried them with appropriate rituals and ceremonies. The story of this film is about how we approach the AI world and contemporary toys, about difference between the natural and the artificial".

Dušan Zorić, one of the two directors of the film "Have you seen this woman?” winner of this year's AFIFS award for the Best Serbian Film, spoke about the bold directorial approach to this work: "When we started thinking about the film and while we were making it, I liked the idea of the film that divides people. But, when it finally happened I did mind, since I wanted people to like the film. However, we expected that there would be mixed reactions".

Matija Gluščević, co-director of the film, reflected on the experience of working together with Dušan Zorić: "There was no division of work between us. We knew from the beginning that we wanted to do everything together and it happened spontaneously. We are kindred spirits in that sense. It's much more fun to work in pair, because then it's not just a question of your personal ego, but you can constantly talk to someone and get immediate feedback, a reaction whether your idea is interesting or not."

Miloš Ivanović, co-producer of the film "Snow and the Bear", said about the creation of this work: "The film project participated in the First Films First workshop led by Stefan Arsenijević, where we met the producer and the director, and they wanted to collaborate. That was relatively soon after we established production company. For a debut film, it was quite successfully financed, and it has so far been successful in terms of awards and distribution".

On the fifth day of the Festival, on Wednesday, July 19, on the Summer Stage in Palić, the Official Selection presents the film "Old Oak" by Ken Loach at 9 p.m., and from 11 p.m., "The Land of Short Sentences" by Hella Joof. Before the screening of the first film, director Andreas Dresen will receive the Aleksandar Lifka Award in the category of foreign authors. The "Parallels and Encounters" section, at the Abazija cinema in Palić presents the films "Cold as Marble" by Asif Rustamov (5 p.m.) and "Citizen Saint" by Tinatin Kajrishvili (7 p.m.).