08/06/2021 - France's Reel Suspects is taking this horror film directed by and starring Serbia's Branko Tomović to the Cannes Marché du Film

Serbian actor Branko Tomović debuts as a director with Vampir [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Branko Tomović
film profile], a folk-horror film that stars Tomović himself alongside Gorica Regodić (Next to Me [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stevan Filipović
film profile]), Joakim Tasić (Santa Maria della Salute) and Balkan screen legend Eva Ras, best known internationally for her role in Dušan Makavejev's classic Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator. Cineuropa exclusively presents the trailer and the poster for the film.

Award-winning composer Mark Ashworth has created the score for the English-language film shot on location in Serbia. French sales company Reel Suspects has picked up this co-production between the UK’s Red Marked Films, Serbia’s Dinaric Alps Productions and Germany’s Vickermann Films, and is taking it to the imminent Cannes Marché du Film.

In the feature, after witnessing a crime in London and looking for a place to hide for a while, Arnaut (Tomović) is offered a job by the charming yet ruthless local Vesna (Regodić) – to look after a cemetery in a small, remote village in Serbia. He soon starts to have nightmarish visions and is frequently visited by mysterious older woman Baba Draga (Ras), who guides Arnaut into the darkness. Only the village priest (Tasić) seems to be trying to keep him safe from the sinister intentions of the villagers.

“Our film is inspired by those early myths, superstitions and folk elements that surrounded the first real vampire cases in Serbia in the early 1700s,” says Tomović. “Those were the origin of vampires, which many people don’t know. Our film is set in modern times, and I wanted to show a more mysterious side of Serbia.

“On another level, the film also serves as an allegory of an immigrant child who was raised abroad and comes back to his ancestors’ country, where he is confronted with the local habits, traditions and way of life, which are hard to accept at first.”

Check out our exclusive trailer and poster for Vampir below: