The film “Za danas tolanko” was not made with a special message, the script was written intuitively out of the need “for a different kind of time” in which people listen to each other, director Marko Đorđević told FoNet and explained that later there was a need to describe the intimacy of a family in the present moment.
He believes that such a “simple life” really exists and explains that the script is made up of the stories of people he knows.
“The film was born from the desire to be in the present moment, right there, and not to be on the phones in your mind. I think the viewers recognized that as a point, which we were not aware of while making the film,” he said Marko Djordjevic.
When asked if the life of the Šarenac family in the film, as shown, really exists or if it is a utopia, he replied that he thinks it exists, but that we are “bombarded” with another kind of life, so it seems that it does not exist.
“I was at the Theater Meeting in Kragujevac, that is, the meeting of all high schools in Serbia, and you somehow think that there is no interest among children in anything different, classical works, and then you see how much creativity there is and how imaginative the children are still”, pointed out Đorđević.
When you look at reality, it’s as if all that still exists, it’s just masked by everything we’ve been bombarded with, so it seems like it’s not there, emphasized Đorđević and added that the initial idea was not to make a film about normal life.
As he explained, “it came to us intuitively because it is interesting for acting, and therefore it was transferred into some message of the film”.
The film apparently has no plot, Đorđević described, and because of that it was very easy to become boring, so in every scene something special had to happen in front of the camera and that is mostly in the acting.
According to him, as a result, there was a lot of repetition of scenes and searching for the right choice of shots, “so we really worked hard for all the scenes”.
When asked why the action of the film begins and ends with the preparation of “chupavci” cakes, Đorđević replied that food brings people together.
“When I was writing the acenario, I was interested in the idea that they should lure that brother who hasn’t come home for a long time by preparing tufts and inviting him to evaluate them as a judge. It was small and fairy-tale and unusual, he didn’t come home for months and then he comes as a judge to test the tufted dogs”, explained Đorđević.
He stated that such films are unusual, especially for film distributors, but also for the audience, who often do not give them a chance.
“It seems to me that people have a resistance to any kind of film that cannot be classified as either a commercial or an art film. This film is somehow between those two worlds, and we all grew up watching such films. Those are Fellini, Almodovar, Kusturica, and that is the film National Class, those are achievements that are watched by both the audience and the critics,” said Đorđević.
That has been lost a little today and films are placed in all categories, commercial or artistic, said Đordevic and interpreted that people think that artistic films are for festivals, for a small number of viewers, while commercial ones are intended for a large number of viewers.
“The victory of this film is that it has a large viewership and somehow opens the space for distributors in the future to pay attention to films, to really look at them and to assess whether the film can be watched, and not just put it in the category of commercial or art film “, considered Djordjevic.
He pointed out that he and the film crew mostly receive positive comments and that it seems as if the audience has a need to share their impressions with them.
“They say that film meant a lot to their lives, so we are especially grateful that the audience shares themselves with us. The reactions of the audience are more than we could have hoped for, because letters reach us, people try to express themselves as poetically as possible, just like us who made this film”, explains Đorđević.
When asked if the fact that the film’s plot was moved from Belgrade means that it is a matter of decentralization of domestic film, Đorđević answered that many author’s films that have been shot lately are shot outside of Belgrade.
“It is a specific case here that most of the crew is from Kragujevac or from other cities, the producer is from Novi Sad, the cinematographer is from Kruševac, so the film crew is flexible and that’s nice, because other cities should also live,” said Đorđević. ,
As he mentioned, somehow we all come to Belgrade to have cultural content, which is a bit sad, because other cities also deserve their cultural life.
The film “Za danas tonok” had its premiere in the main competition program FEST-a, where he received two festival awards.
Actress Ivana Vuković was awarded for the best female role, and it also received an award from Politika magazine for the best Serbian film.
The movie “Za danas tonok” entered cinema distribution on March 28, and so far it has been seen by more than 30,000 viewers.
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