Although he has been the producer and director of the Author Film Festival (FAF) for ten years, the founder of Kids Fest, which will start for the 12th time on Sunday, and the director of the distribution company "Megakom Film", Ivan Stanković's name became known to the so-called general public only recently, when he was awarded Order of Arts and Literature in the rank of knight. It turned out that Ivan Stanković's biography is like something from a Hollywood movie.
"WEATHER": How a young man from Uroševac became a film distributor, cinema owner, founder of one, and the reviver of the second festival, and now the youngest recipient of the French Order of the Knight of Culture?
IGOR STANKOVIC: I graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Pristina and got a job as a tax inspector in Uroševac, and then after the bombing, I was unassigned in Belgrade. Since I didn't have a job, I returned to my youthful interests in technology, film, music, most of all - I played in a band in high school. I was at every possible company that was involved in technology, music and video programming at that time. That's how I came into contact with satellite channels. When the regular purchase of programs started after October 2006th, what was the easiest thing to get? Well, movies. I entered the business then with a Slovenian partner, who knew it better than me. However, I realized that the distribution of films on television is not enough, that this country deserves more and better, and that includes festivals and cinemas, and that the author's film be represented on them. I continued the work independently and that's how "Megakom film" was born. At that time, "Yugoslavia Film", which was the founder of the Author's Film Festival (FAF), went into partial privatization, which did not quite succeed. After many vicissitudes regarding the rights to the Festival, we managed to create a new Author's Film Festival in 22 with Voj Vučinić, who was once the director of Yugoslavia Film and the initiator of the first FAF XNUMX years ago. Voja and I were united by a non-tendential desire to show a quality film instead of a commercial one. We created a new council, which included Srdan Golubović, Stefan Arsenijević, Oleg Novković, Srđan Koljević, Vladimir Perišić and Nikola Ležajić.
In parallel with that, our distribution company MCF cooperated with other festivals: from Palić, through Fest, to the Manaki film festival in Bitol, and the festival in Herceg Novi. Our commitment to European film has been recognized by European funds as well as awards at festivals. Then an interesting thing happened - in 2011, we received the representation of the largest Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox, not only for the territory of Serbia, but also for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania. We are very proud of that - we are the only Serbian company that represents a Hollywood studio in the region. All others are Slovenian or Croatian.
How are you?, personally and professionally, reconcile two things: love for the little one, independent, auteur film, and at the same time you represent the biggest Hollywood studio?
An original film is quite difficult to define. It has to be a movie that you really find yourself in and enjoy, and that's mostly a personal thing. Climbing an escalator in a 12-minute frame is an author's expression, but it's boring. It's not an auteur film as far as I'm concerned, it's a boring film. On the other hand, Hollywood can produce a movie as it is Birdman or what is it like Returnee, but, at the same time, Hollywood studios have romantic comedies in which the main and only goal from the beginning to the end of the film is to make a wedding. I'm equally fascinated by a small, barely visible thing, created with a budget probably less than the value of the cinema hall in which the film is shown, and at the same time it keeps you, nails you in your seat and makes you think about it, but I'm also impressed by the grandiosity and pomp a good Hollywood movie that cost more than all the cinema halls in Serbia. I simply enjoy both, as well as all the differences between original and Hollywood films.
How do you rate contemporary European film??
I think European film is full of compromises and I think that ruins the perception of a good European film. But thanks to great authors such as the Darden brothers, Haneke or Kaurismaki, who I believe do not compromise, there are good films. On the other hand, we have a surge of populist films - I guarantee that in the next two years films about refugees will be made. It has already started, refugees are the key word in politically correct topics. This is the funding approach to film production in Europe. Five countries, one for the composer, another for the actor, the third for the editor... Again, genius films are born in such conditions: for example, this year's German comedy Toni Erdmann. A serious movie.
The only children's film festival in Serbia, Kids festival, will be held from 23. to 30. October in Belgrade and in more than 30 cities of Serbia. The program includes a large number of animated ones, feature and documentary films from Switzerland, SAD, France, Belgium, Czech Republic, the Netherlands. Your motive to establish Kids Fest was of a private nature...
In 2004, our first child was born and I decided to create a children's film festival, so my daughter and Kids Fest are peers. The quality of this festival was recognized not only by the Ministry of Culture and the City Secretariat for Culture, but also by many of our partners, so Kids Fest includes not only film screenings, but also various creative workshops, acting schools, presentation of the countries from which the films come, and then, Red Cross, Army, music schools. The festival is held simultaneously in many cities of Serbia, and in cooperation with almost every local government, we organize free transportation of children from suburban areas. I am especially glad that those children are more interested in the events at the Kids Fest. It sometimes happens that we have a whole class of children who have never been to the cinema before.
Recently, the French Ministry of Culture awarded you the Order of Arts and Letters in the rank of knight because of "engagements and activities for the benefit of cultural and artistic ties between our two countries while fostering European values". What have you done to French culture??
That was my question to them. They told me that I probably deserved that recognition earlier, but that my job as a film distributor was not so recognized among cultural workers. The French Institute from Belgrade nominated me for this award because of my many years of cooperation at various French film reviews and, in general, Francophone films. Also, MCF has promoted French culture for years by purchasing the rights to show many French films that we distributed in the regular cinema repertoire. I think that the fact that, using my professional and personal acquaintances, I managed to bring numerous French directors and actors to our festivals and revues contributed a lot to everything. Among them is one Christophe Gans, probably the biggest name in contemporary French cinema.
