UNMIK on Air

Interview with film director Rajko Grlic

By Andrea Saula

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There is always silence before the storm and many believe that a couple of years ago the people of former Yugoslavia lived in silence, in some kind of lethargy, before the stormy wars gradually began.

Croatian film director Rajko Grlic in the interview with UNMIK Radio and TV says that his war movie called “Karaula” or “Border Post”, that is being shoot these days in Macedonia, aims to tell that story ; about those sleepy people during the very last days of former country.

The movie is based on a novel by young Croatian author Ante Tomic called “Nothing could surprise us”, a quote used by the former Yugoslav army as its slogan.

Actuality No.1 39:59 I had an impression that (Ante’s) colorful story is very good libretto for a movie. I’ve always thought that good books shouldn’t be put into the movie. (edit to) I had a feeling that the story about the people in the moment of silence before the tragedy could be told.

In simple words Grilic describes his movie as a funny and sad story about last days of Yugoslavia.

Actuality No. 2 42:48 Politicians are not the only ones who made the war; Milosevic and Tudjman are not the only ones. They pulled the trigger but the people had to be ready to carry it on. (edit to) When one is making a movie, one doesn’t want to give some thesis or to revise the history. One is telling the story about concrete people and concrete situation but I’m very interested in that moment in which the war came into people’s minds. I think the reason for the hides there not in actions that came after.

Speaking both from an artistic and commercial point of view, the war itself is good material to make a movie but for the society that had past through the war, speaking and rethinking the war is a necessary act that some would call needed catharsis.

Actuality No. 3 41:56 It seams to me that many stories about the war were told, about the act, about who did what to whom and that 80 percents of these stories were told from my point of view or from his but that those stories are one-dimension stories. Many stories were more propaganda, putting my truth against somebody else’s truth. I think in 15 years we’ll talk seriously about this war when passion and the pain get some patina.

Unfortunately, we often face with the fact that some filmmakers just like other intellectuals, did not only one-dimensional stories but also lobbied for and promoted the war.

Did the time come for those to say at lest “mea culpa”!?

Actuality No. 4 43:51 I think that ‘mea culpa’ will evert happen. I think that we live in the place where people have big dreams, and like in some play, the first act is the dream about the state, big joint state or a separate, independent one. Then in the second act the sober down comes, meaning we have achieved the dream and now we live the reality. At the third act, after the tragedy happens, the real end never comes. Dead bodies have never been taken out of the stage. Every time that act has been cut and everybody tries to forget everything because they realize that the time is the only remedy for the tragedy that had happened.

Maybe some remedies offered from outside could be helpful, believes director Grlic.

Actuality No. 5 44:32 The Hague Tribunal is the attempt to impose catharsis and to take those dead bodies out of the scene. It could be criticized because of various reasons, but still it’s the only serious idea to make an attempt to finalize the third act.

For the first times since the wars Rajko Grlic was able to gather a filming team from all over of former Yugoslavia.

The story attracted producers starting from Vardar up to Triglav. But also Austrian, British and French producers jumped in to bring together a budget of over 2 millions euros to make the movie. The first amount came from the Council of Europe and its film foundation “Euroimage”.

Actuality No. 6 45:23 The film is expensive. It is stupid to say that the movie is the attempt to reincarnate the dead one. (edit to) This is the attempt of so called Scandinaviazation of this region, for one to understand that Norway, Sweden and Denmark are small countries and they started to jointly produce movies. They have similar languages. They have some similar interests. This is the attempt to produce one a bit more complicated project by the best people coming from different states, to put together small capacities in order to produce something with higher quality

At the moment the film crew, that media describe as ex-Yugoslavian dream team is shooting in national park Galicica at Lake Ohrid in Macedonia. In the first half of next year “Karaula” is supposed to be released.