Interview: Mladen Vušurović, producer and cameraman

The power places of Maya and Aztecs

The first encounter with Mexico was through its food, its aroma and strong flavours. We have been there for 30 days and every day was full of intensive work. We would start very early by going to the work field and we stayed there until late in the evening. The contact with the civilization of Maya and Aztecs truly filled me


By BOJANA VUJNIĆ
Cooperation with the magazine of Association of Hispanists REFLEJO
Translation: IVANA JELENKOVIĆ


During month of June the viewers of the Belgrade TV station B92 Info were able to see a part of the rich middleamerican cultures. Through three half an hour episodes, the documentary "The power places of Maya and Aztecs" - "The Lost World", "The Feathery Snake" and "The Sun Stone", follows the 30-centuries-civilization on the territory of Mexico and Guatemala from its beginning till the end, through the places such as Cicen Ica, Palenka and Teotiuakan.

The man behind this project, Mladen Vušurović, the producer and the cameraman of the film as well as the founder of the "Around the world" production and the manager of Beldocs, speaks about the making of the film, what took him and his co-worker journalist Dragan Jokić on the road, and what impression he got.

- I travelled a lot. After India, Japan, Morocco, Portugal, Spain and Dubai, I went to America. The first place I visited was Mexico. The encounter with the civilization of Maya and Aztecs fullfilled me completely and it gave me another and new knowledge, and brought me closer to those people. The next country I might visit is Peru. For the end, as the crown of my researches, I left Africa, the place which we are deeply related to and where we all came from. That is the way I see my engaging in the ancient civilisation, and global culture and history- explains Vušurović.

What was the first encounter with Mexico like?

- The first encounter with Mexico was through its food, its aroma and strong flavours. We were walking down the street and met the sellers of the refreshing desserts. They were selling pineapple, which they diced up and put into a plastic bowl, and then came a tablespoon of red chilly, salt and lemon.

How long have you stayed in Mexico, and what was the working on the film like?

- We have been there for 30 days and every day was full. The intensive day started very early in the morning by going to the place of shooting. When we went to Cicen Ica, we set off at 3:30 AM. To get there you need two hours, so we started the shooting at six o'clock and we finished at 9:00 PM.

We were in Mexico in March 2008. We wanted to be in Cicen Ica on 21st March, the day of equinox. On that day you can see the shadow of the feathery snake on the temple of Kukulkan, which appears twice a year on equinox days in March and September.

There is one more film being made related to Mexico "Concheros de la conchita"?

- Film "Concheros de la conchita" should bring concheros closer to the audience, the band which engage in traditional relation between aztec dance and christianity rituals. They gather themselves several times a year, they have their own military order, their own captains, rituals and in that way, through song and dance, they remember their past. That perception of the past enables one to see the future. That is a very demanding project and a big challenge for me. Distribution of this film is planned for 2012. The distribution depends not only on organizational but also financial matters.

As someone who is engaged in documentary, which film of that genre, from Spanish speaking regions, would you recommend to our readers?

- I can recommend a film made in Columbian-Argentinian co-production by Nicolas Entel "The sins of my father". It is about narco boss Pablo Escobar and his son, and it was shown on Beldocs. There is a Mexican film "Nine months and nine days". I can't leave out "Garbo: The Spy", the film which was declared the best documentary in 2009 by the Spanish Academy.



(Published: 12.07.2010.)