In a playful, often hilarious mixture of documentary and fiction, the film maker Zelimir Zilnik traces sanctifying capitalism, sold to the Serbians after the disappearance of state socialism as the great new god.
In a playful, often hilarious mixture of documentary and fiction, the film maker Zelimir Zilnik traces sanctifying capitalism, sold to the Serbians after the disappearance of state socialism as the great new god. As a background for his story, Zilnik uses a number of strikes that took place in Belgrade in recent years and introduces us to several people involved who are allowed to 'play' themselves. That leads to explosive situations. Employees dressed in American football kits come to settle up with their employers with gangs of heavies in bullet-proof vests. But the factories have already been emptied. The arrival of a Russian tycoon and the American vice president Joe Biden light the fuse.
Zilnik's intriguing docu-drama observes with x-ray eyes and in a sharp tone what's going on in the new Serbia. No lazy ideological analysis, but a complex and yet lighthearted portrait of the consequences of globalised capitalism for a country that has only just joined in the game.
PROGRAMMER NOTES
Zelimir Zilnik is a great Serbian master and he has been developing his unique idiosyncratic style in docu-drama in his films since the 1980s. This festival has regularly shown his work since 2000: Wanderlust, Fortress Europe, Kenedi Goes Back Home and its sequel Kenedi Is Getting Married. He is a highly innovative and provocative author, making films that make you think. In his films, he concentrates on the people of Central and Eastern Europe and their various destinies in the middle of the turmoil of socio-economical changes. A very often used tool of this filmmaker is that of people acting themselves. In his latest work, Zilnik concentrates on the status quo of his own country and the lives of the ordinary people living there, who are actually imprisoned in it. It is witty, critical and surprising cinema that makes you think in a different way: about the genre the director is using, and about the world around us.
LC