Interview: Zoran Popović, CEO of festival "Magnificient Seven"

"A world designed to fit a man's needs"

Unlike motion pictures, especially American, which have a large media support, the documentary film in our country, when it comes to current production, is limitated on narrow circles of film professionals and a small number of passionate fans. That's why announced programme is always covered with attractive misteries


By JOVANA GRUBAČ
from Belgrade, SERBIA


European documentary film festival 'The magnificent 7', once again proved that Belgrade audience is eager to experience a repertoire of a great quality, and that a bombastic film trailer is not always enough in order to sell the tickets. This festival had earned the audience's trust by selecting documentary films in the past years, and once again succeeded to amaze the people on the projections. The director of 'the magnificent 7', Zoran Popovic, talks more about the Festival and the documentary film in general for the Wave magazine.

Is it hard to choose documentaries for the Festival which has a goal to attract audience, and at the same time reach a certain level of quality?

Is very hard to make a selection , given that the production of documentary films in Europe is on it's rise, and the number of high quality films is very large.The goal of the selectors is to choose only seven films, the very best of the best. The choice is not simply made by automatically choosing films which already had won some award on the most significant festivals. It is a creative process which enables us to really see the current situation in European documentary film. Although this is a festival of antological films of various authors, very different by themes and ideas, every year the selection is unified by a certain unique element. This year we had the chance to watch films that told a story about "A world designed to fit a man's needs".

Unlike motion pictures, especially American, which have a large media support, the documentary film in our country, when it comes to current production, is limitated on narrow circles of film professionals and a small number of passionate fans. That's why announced programme is always covered with attractive misteries. But none of us forgets the fact that 'The magnificent 7' festival is created because of the need of our audience and film workers to follow the paths of current film productions. That's why the selection is made considering the needs of the, we can say, magnificant and European Belgrade audience.

Why is this period, as Tue Stin Miller suggests, the golden era of the documentary film? Is audience a litle bit fed up with regular offer, so the documentaries might mean a new perspective for them?

In the mid '90s, a so called 'new Holywood crisis' had occured. The inflation of American genre cinema films in every European country, followed by constant degradation of themes and ideas, had literary erased some of the European cinematographies. The repertoires were very poor, so the inteligent audience felt the need for some other kind of film creations.

On the other side, the pressure of the American films had its economical dimension. Determined to conquer the world and erase the competition, Holywood studios had astronomically increased prices for film-making. The majority of European production had decreased the amount of their production, and due to a reduced cinema exploatation, for them to make a profit form a film had become almost a mission impossible. In such times, the documentary film becomes a only real creative answer. Due to the fact that it is extremely cheaper and much more liberated, it attracted many young authors like a magnet. Many European fuondations and comissions recognized the documentary film as an charismatic aliy in a fight for preserving European film and culture.

It had become very clear that the original force and the value of life, creatively shaped in a modern documentary, can overcome often shallow and cliched hollywood images of life. Documentary film brought new, fresh ideas, and the audience around the world was thrilled to ,once again, enjoy the exhaust less magic of the film.

Do you think that the documentary film should become a part of a regular cinema repertoir?

Very first documentary fims made during the '20s were made to be featured in the cinemas. Some time needed to pass for the theorists to define the differences between motion pictures and documentary films, but the audience never seemd to give a lot of thought about that difference. 'The magnificant7' festival concentrated abouth the films that , besides their successes on various festivals, have thier own life in the cinemas.

In many European countries, documentary films had become a significant factor in cinema repertoires, and some documentary hits even had a bigger succes at the box office than various holywood block busters. It would be great to bring back the culture of cinemas in Belgrade and Serbia, and the documentaries could certainly became a very atractive part of cinema repertoires.

The director of the film 'Blind loves' which opened the Festival, had spent a lot of time with the protagonists of the film, in order to create a story and represent it to the audience. Is that a good way of creating a documentary film? To infiltrate yourself into the group so the camera can really catch it 'from the first angle'?

The only universal recipe for making a good documentary film is a long and thural research. To really get to know the people which will be featured in the film often means spending a several-month period with them, sometimes even several years. When choosing a theme for the film, the author has to question himself whether he is capable of spending weeks and weeks with the people in order to make a film about them. If the answer is afirmative, that means the begining of the process which will change both the lives of the author and protagonists. That unique relationship that is established while making a film, is a inseparable part of the film's value.

The Festival has its educational side - you have organized work shops where the participants could exchange opinions and learn new things through interacting with the authors. Are you satisfied by the result of the work shops?

The number of aplicants who were mainly students of Film academy or young film authors was larger than previous years, including the applications from Rijeka and Sarajevo. The work shops were exceptional, because the authors were inspired by the atmosphere and were very comitteed and enthusiastic about sharing their thoughts and ideas. But the true effect of the work shop becomes visible when the young participants show how inspired they are and start fighting for their first documentary works.

Does 'The magnificant 7' Festival have some plans for the next year, which ideas you plan to realize?

The Festival is still not finished for all of us , because there are a lot of things to be done yet. The reactions are still comming to us from the audience ,our collegues, work-shop participants, and, which is extremely pleasant, from the film authors which were the guests of our festival. It would be nice to talk about the future plans in few months from now, when we will be intensively working on the preparation of the next festival.

Did this festival win its place with the Serbian audience through the years?

The very first year of the Festival, people who came took it as their own spiritual space. Many of them do not miss to be present on almost every projection and interviews with the authors. As the years pass, the audience becomes larger and largerand and the Festival strenghtens its position on the list of the significant cultural events in Serbia.

Which were the films who singled out as the most popular and well-accepted by the audience on this year's Festival? Will the audience have the chance to see them again, if they didn't made it to the Festival?

Given the fact that the movies are very different in terms of the story, actions and ideas, it is expected that the audience has different opinions. Every pojection in small hall of Sava Centre were sold out and there were a lot of people sitting on the flor and watching the films.

It seems to us that every film has found its audience and its fans. One film especially singled out and additionally thrilled the audience:it was the British film 'Sleep Furiously', which had closed the Festival. A group of young and thrilled viewers even made a Gideon Kopel appriciation society group on Facebook afterwards.


(Published: 10.02.2009.)