06/08/2021 - With his new film, the Serbian director presents a satire on religion mirroring the essential social themes of the Balkan countries

Heavens Above [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Srđan Dragojević
film profile] by Srđan Dragojević is in competition at this year's Locarno Film Festival. In three episodes, he satirically confronts some important philosophical topics that determine social interactions and are closely related to religion. We talked to the director about his inspiration, the concept of the film and some details of the production.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Cineuropa: You say you have taken inspiration from the writings of French author Marcel Aymé.
Srđan Dragojević: I read his stories many years ago, even before I started at the film academy. Then I forgot about them, but five years ago I found them again and re-read them. I was bored of doing social dramas and crime films and took the opportunity to adapt the big fantasy and science fiction ideas of Aymé. I chose three surrealistic, black comedies, I like that a lot. I guess the topics they address speak to me particularly because I am fifty-seven years old now and with maturity, you tend to face some bigger questions related to faith and death. Moreover, my sister is an orthodox nun and we had a lot of discussions about it too. I am reflecting a lot on religion.

Why did you choose to use three different time periods?
The original writing is set in the 1920s and 1930s in the French bourgeoisie. I wanted to adapt it to a society that would vaguely recall Yugoslavia, rather than Serbia. I chose to set the stories between 1993 and 2026 to relate them to the transition from socialism to Christianity that really happened and still is proceeding in Eastern European countries. It is a very interesting and bizarre process, since it feels like there is a parallel to the first centuries of Christianity when pagan rituals coexisted with Christian ones. New rules and new habits in religion rise again and are confronted with socialism. I wanted to take a comical approach to this.

How did you develop your characters? And did you have the actors already in mind when writing the roles?
Developing the characters is a process that starts with writing the script, and doesn't take into account the real conditions or specific actors. Then when I start to imagine the film, I am faced with real locations and the offers of the market in terms of actors. At the end, you need to adapt to that. For the actors, it was important that all could be convincing in all the three decades of the stories.

What is the most important concept of the film and the main topics you want to focus on? 
I wanted it to be like a puzzle and to raise questions using different metaphors. I wanted to deal with religion and try to understand some aspects myself and to confront the concepts of a god of love and a god of revenge, for example. I am also interested in miracles and temptations. We live in an era that has its own golden calf, which we see also on the commercial side of art. And of course, as a film director, I’m also concerned with the question of what we do art for. For money, glory and recognition?

It is quite an archaic and brutal life that you depict.
It is reality for the Balkans. You get used to it, it is an experience on a daily basis, still it can start to bother you. But to show life as an anarchy is normal for Eastern European directors. Even though the film is fantasy, I consider myself a realist. I do not run away from reality. There are probably some aspects in the film that Balkan people may understand more than others. An example is in the first episode, the wife of the man getting a halo. Her character is a metaphor for the media. Balkan citizens are constantly confronted to the media, it will turn them crazy, eventually. The media is filled with nationalist propaganda, showing non-stop politicians demonstrating their power and manipulating public opinion.

Was it difficult to get funding for the film?
Actually, it took more time and energy than for my other films. But I am very proud that all six republics of the former Yugoslavia are involved in the production. Already for The Parade [+see also:
trailer
film profile], we had five of them, but now, there are all of them. This is important to me because I see it as one big market, offering incredible creativity and a lot of talented professionals.