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GORAN RADOVANOVIC |  | ||||||
© Copyright 1999-2001 ShockART, Belgrade |
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A native of Belgrade, Goran Radovanovic is prolific. A 1982 art history graduate, he started working as a film critic, then his scripts were turned into a feature and a TV film and in them he became involved in shorts and documentaries. In the 90's he focused on documentaries dealing with sensitive issues like minorities, refugees, democratization, and collaborating closely with independent media. He has his own production company, Principal Film, for which he did more than 20 public service announcements about the democratization of Serbia between 1998-99. He is probably the most awarded Balkan documentary film author and he worked with many producers and institutions including: Academy Award producer "First Floor Features" - Amsterdam; Teleproduction International - Washington DC; Open Society Institute - Soros Documentary Fund NYC; Intl. Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society - Geneve; Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen - Germany... |
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The first retrospective of Goran Radovanovic's films (1996) was screened in Babylon Cinema in Berlin. 
Goran Radovanovic's films have been shown in the official programmes of Yugoslav and international film festivals (Mannheim, Moscow, Amsterdam, Torino, Tampere, Cracow, Vancouver, Hamburg, Lisbon, Umea, Bombay, Gyoer, Kosice, Potsdam, Trieste, Osnabruick, Prix Italia, Neubrandeburg, Augsburg, New York, Dallas, North Carolina, Kansas City, Geneve, Oberhausen, Jerusalem, Barcelona, Rhode Island, Rome, Seattle, Austin, Toronto, Kassel, Basel, Milano, Samos, Kyoto, Prague, Bochum, Thessaloniki, San Antonio, Frankfurt, Zurich, Prague, Voladero - Mexico, Den Hague, Istanbul... etc).
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On the other end of the documentary filmmaking spectrum, Goran Radovanovic employs satire to illuminate the profound chaos Yugoslavia has been plunged into. Model House (2000) follows a Serbian cleaning woman who is a refugee from the Krajina region. Although she is grateful to be working, taking care of the homes of others reminds her of the home she lost during the war. Her narrative is juxtaposed with scenes from the NATO bombing, visuals of dingy refugee camps, excerpts from state television broadcasts spewing inane propaganda, and a voiceover of Milosevic intoning, among other things, "All must be sacrificed for the people, except the people." Displaying a kaleidoscope of images and formats, Radovanovic's Second Circle (1997) depicts the lives of individuals surviving on the margins of society. We watch as a young woman responds to ads for housekeepers only to be turned down once the prospective employer learns she is a gypsy. By way of rejection they explain they are seeking someone "civilized." In another story, a homeless man eats out of garbage cans while a voiceover taken from the Belgrade Health Ministry describes with a gourmand's delight how to create a nutritional meal. Circle's tragicomic fusion makes the underlying reality of the situation that much more devastating. Coming from a fiction filmmaking background, Radovanovic approaches the documentary form as simply another way to tell a story. As he noted at his press conference, "After the war there was no work in film, so I switched to cheaper formats and started making documentaries. For me, I simply want to show how truly neurotic life is in Serbia. I use different formats and collage-like elements in my work to try and describe how we are living now. Forty years of lies and manipulation by Tito, then ten years of these nationalist and global lies, and we are now left with a country that is a tragedy. At least when I manipulate the material in my films I am honest about it." April 2001 | Issue 32 OSLO 2000: Get ready for a very precise and extremely well made political satire from Serbia - 1999. Sometimes it is hysterically, but the laughter is soon swallowed when it in a masterly fashion depicts human tragedies in a society out of the ordinary. Examples of extreme poverty, corruption and ethnic problems are effectively blended with manipulations from the stately controlled TV broadcaster. Goran Radovanovic - Moja Domovina (za unutrasnuju upotrebu)
/ My Country (for internal use only) A man proudly displays to us the contents of his personal rubbish container. Look, it's got four wheels, a clip and even a brake! He climbs inside to examine the day's yield. Together they are symbolic of Serbia in 1999: the thing looks nice on the outside, but just poke around in it with a stick and you'll discover misery. In this video Radovanovic combines found footage from the Serbian media with material of his own in a highly intelligent way. He leaps to and fro between the small and the large, individual and state, appearance and reality; his purpose being to demonstrate both their mutual correspondence and the absurd discrepancies between them. The media announce the heroic nation's rapid recovery and the payment of pensions. Meanwhile the people are eating out of garbage cans and the pensions are not enough to live on. The situation of Vera the pensioner typifies the state of the nation. In her elegant fur coat and hood she looks very well-kept - but she is forced to go to the soup kitchen every day. She keeps up external appearances and protects herself against the complete decline that would set in were she to admit that she is penniless. It is a psychological mechanism that is fully exploited by the Serbian propaganda machine. If you just shout loud enough that the economic tide has turned, that Milosevic is a heroic man of peace and that the people who demonstrate against him are sexually frustrated mental defectives from the margins of society, there are always enough people who will swallow the indoctrination. But there is a glimmer of hope in 'My Country'. The man from the rubbish container keeps himself alive by eating pigeons. His knows exactly which pigeons are not for eating and these he throws away. "Actually, I eat like a prince!" he says beaming, and inside his container he sings an Islamic-sounding song. - Lies Holtrop, World Wide Video Festival, Amsterdam, 2000 Euroground 2000 Krakow: Serbia 1999: Extreme Poverty, corruption, ethnic cleansing, NATO aggression, manipulation of population by the state controlled media and a hunger for democracy. Director Goran Radovanovic puts together a documentary that examines these issue with elements of sarcasm and razor sharp political commentary. Third Thessaloniki short film festival showcases Yugoslav, Greek films The war in Serbia "murdered" the movies but "gave birth" to documentaries as there are no producers willing to provide the funds for movies, Yugoslav film director Goran Radovanovic said on Friday, during the third documentary film festival of Thessaloniki. Three documentaries directed by Radovanovic will be screened at the festival along with one by Greek journalist and screen writer Stelios Kouloglou, which notes of harsh times as it focuses on the post Greek Civil War era of the 1940s. · Special Jury Award MOJA DOMOVINA (ZA UNUTRASNJU UPOTREBU) For its pressing and important subject, expressed with originality and cleverness through a balanced and successful mixture of genres Film Festival "Alternativa", Barcelona 2000 "My country" is worth a special mention. Goran Radovanovic shows a disturbing picture of a country destroyed by war, autocracy, corruption, ethno-nationalism and widespread poverty. He also reveals the great obstacles for peace and democracy that remain even after the successful October's uprising. PreisträgerInnen des 11. Internationalen Bochumer Videofestivals Preise der Jury: Ein Preis in Höhe von 1000,- DM geht an "Model House" von Goran Radovanovic, BetaSP, 21'00, Belgrad, Yugoslavia Goran Radovanovic nähert sich einem Thema, das mit seinem Schrecken für uns leider schon zum Alltagsthema geworden ist, auf ungewöhnliche Weise. Seine Protagonisten, denen er sehr Nahe kommt, erzählen dem Zuschauer über ihre veränderte Wohnsituation. Durch seine Fokussierung auf einen Gesichtspunkt schafft es Goran Radovanovic ohne Pathos und sogar humorvoll Geschichten über den Krieg in unserer Nähe zu erzählen. Der Film bekommt seine Leichtigkeit auch durch die Verwendung von verschiedenen Stilelementen wie Archivmaterial und Animation, die sensibel eingesetzt werden. |
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Goran Radovanovic |
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