Beldocs: We demand that the activists be released

Beldocs started coming of age last night with a clear stance against injustice. Namely, in front of the packed hall of Dom omladine Belgrade, on May 21, the Beldocs International Documentary Film Festival team called for the release and release from house arrest of the activists of the Movement of Free Citizens and the student organization STAV, giving recognition to all educational and university workers as the "invisible heroes" of today's Serbia.

The audience responded with huge applause.

"Last year, we had a film by Aleksandar Reljić at the festival A memory from Novi Sad about the crimes of the Hungarian fascists in Novi Sad during the Second World War. One of the actors from the film is professor Marija Vasić. The entire collective of Beldocs stands unitedly behind the arrested activists and professors and we demand that they be released from house arrest," said Marko Grba Singh, director of the festival.

The selector of the 18th Beldocs, Igor Stanojević, referred to the current events, mentioning the nearby "mysterious settlements where people with unidentified motives and mostly locked files" commit crimes.

"Restitution, or the sleep and wake of the old guard"

Beldocs opened with the film "Restitution, or the dream and sleep of the old guard" by Želimir Žilnik.

This one, basically a play, but with documentary elements, follows an old musician, pianist Stevan Arsin, who, after six decades of living in Germany, returns to Serbia in order to return the family property - fertile land and an old villa. He faces family, friends and a process full of legal challenges in today's "hyper-transactional" world.

In a conversation with the director and main actor Milan Kovačević (1936), a musician from Novi Sad after the screening of the film, it was learned that Kovačević's life story and successful musical career in Germany since the beginning of the 60s, when he left the former SFR Yugoslavia, served as the script for the film and forms its documentary part.

Žilnik and Kovačević, who is not a professional actor, were introduced by a mutual friend. He lives in Novi Sad, and when he was young he wanted to act and adored Charlie Chaplin. His wish to act in a film came true, which, as he pointed out in the conversation after the premiere screening, was a great pleasure and "the fulfillment of his childhood dream".

Unscripted scenes

For certain scenes, such as the one in which the main character of the film, before the final signing of the contract on the restitution of a valuable inheritance, has to have his mental capacity examined by a psychologist at the request of his greedy son-in-law, there was not even a written script, but he talked about himself and his performances all over Europe, famous people who attended the concerts, such as Hitchcock.

There is also a semi-documentary scene in which musicians with whom he once played in quintets come to the cottage of the main character's friend, where he is staying while he completes work related to restitution.

Kovačević himself, whom Žilnik calls an unprofessional actor, did not inherit the house and this particular story about restitution is not taken directly from life, but, as the director pointed out, in reality there are many such stories in Vojvodina, where beautiful houses are allowed to decay and what is even more terrible - fertile land remains uncultivated.

The life situations of some other characters are also authentically presented, such as Vera Hrćan Ostojić, who plays a former bar singer and actress, but is also an actress in reality.

Žilnik's new film came to Beldocs after its world premiere earlier this year at the Berlinale, and participation at festivals in Linz, Wiesbaden and Vienna.