Today, the worst ones are under the spotlight

In order to talk to Želimir Žilnik, the famous Novi Sad director who has 56 feature-length and documentary films behind him, many of which have experienced worldwide success, no occasion is needed. There is always something to talk about with him: the past, the present, the future. However, this time there is a reason to talk. It is a large retrospective exhibition of his work in one of the three largest gallery spaces in Europe, in Vienna's Kunsthalle gallery.

"WEATHER": A retrospective exhibition of your work at the famous Vienna Kunsthalle gallery is titled Shadow Citizens. How did this exhibition come about?? Who suggested it??

ŽELIMIR ŽILNIK: The first talks about her took place in January of this year. At the invitation of Oliver Frljić and Srećko Horvat, I participated with three films in the "Europamachine" project in Vienna. I meet friends from the WHW collective, Ivet Ćurlin, Ana Dević, Nataša Ilić and Sabina Sabolović. Old friends, from whom I hear that they were chosen to be artistic directors of the Kunsthalle in an international competition. It is one of the three largest gallery spaces in Europe. They take me to show the installation of a large group exhibition that opens in a few days. A huge hall, like a fair. In it, artists install panels, 10 x 6 meters. Some paint huge compositions on the wall, 15 x 8 meters. I swear. Here we invite you to present your complete opus. Films, posters, invitations to festivals, photos, documentation from the domestic and foreign press, scripts, correspondence with producers...

They also found broadcasts from German and Austrian television about Yugoslav films, including mine, at international festivals. And one, a very precious document for me, a report on a theater play Guest worker opera, which I wrote with Peđo Vranešević, and which was performed at the Serbian National Theater in Novi Sad in February 1977, with success and controversy. It was interesting to see from that German television report that there was an initiative by the cultural attaché of the German Embassy in Belgrade to ban that play. The television crew from Cologne then filmed this report, which contained clips from the play, and conducted interviews. They disputed the attache's accusation, which was based on incorrect information: namely, we are unfairly accused of identifying the German boss with the fascists.

Let's go back to the exhibition.. What else did the curators tell you then??

That they plan to fill that huge space with about thirty screens on which inserts from all the films will be shown. And the tone will be heard using headphones. That every visitor can choose which movie he is interested in, and go to the smaller movie theaters, next to the big hall. And there to sit and watch the complete version. They explain to me that each ticket sold will be valid for multiple visits. And then they propose to call the exhibition Shadow Citizens (Shadow Citizens). I didn't mind. I even really liked the title. We all know, namely, that today the worst are placed under the spotlight. They asked if I had any suggestions to add. I say that it would be good to rent a bus from Novi Sad to bring 50 guests for two days. Excursionists to be collaborators from various teams, participants and actors. They approve this addition. Already in March, that excursion was called into question, because covid went on the offensive. If the trip had happened, it would have been the icing on the Viennese sachertorte.

That name Shadow Citizens it is less dramatic than what the film theorist and historian Pavle Levi wrote. He said that your films represent "cinematography about European exiles".

That statement by Pavle Levi refers to several of my films from the first decade of this century: Fortress Europe, Kennedy returns home., Kennedy lost and found i Kennedy is getting married.. That package of four films was started in cooperation with Toni Tršar, screenwriter and film critic from Ljubljana. He registered a production company and suggested that we make a feature-length documentary about a hot topic that shakes cold and small Slovenia. It is, at that moment, a bridge for passage from the former Eastern bloc to Italy, and then to other European "paradise" destinations. Therefore, columns of refugees from Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, and even China jammed the trains and buses to Trieste. The police and politicians are confused, because according to the obligations that Slovenia now has towards Europe, the refugees should be placed in homes. If they prove that they are deprived of political, religious or social rights in their countries, they are granted temporary residence. They are looking for permanent accommodation and a job. The media is buzzing that in Slovenia, after the separation from Yugoslavia, the number of inhabitants will double in a few years. That linguistic and ethnic diversity will require the opening of new schools and churches. And Slovenians, who can enter the EU without visas, will go where migrants could not.

Speak up, therefore, about working on the film Fortress Europe?

Yes, that's right. Elem, we will meet in Postojna, where several hundred, maybe several thousand people are housed in the former barracks of the JNA. We see that the newcomers are mostly educated people. The former communist government has disintegrated, institutions are falling apart, many have lost their jobs in schools, administration, and the army. Slovenian policemen are pulling their hair out. They say: until a few years ago, everything was so simple. When we capture refugees from the east, we form a group of about fifty. We take them to the hill above Trieste, right next to the border. The commander opened the whiskey, handed each a bottle to take a sip. He patted them on the shoulders and shouted: "Brothers, have a good trip to the West." Undermine capitalism! Now they have to follow the instructions from Brussels. That will ruin our country, they say.

We go with the team to Koper and Trieste, where night patrols cruise the hills. We meet the Italian border police. They stop, check, arrest people, then return them to the Slovenians. We observe: the patrol gathers the group. They point at the batteries, look for documents. They write down and carefully examine their palms. Then they separate them into two groups. They leave one to the side. The other shakes out the bags, rummages through the laundry and socks. That's what they do on purpose, and that unattended group slowly slips away and disappears into the darkness. Tony translates the commander's explanation to me: Italian agriculture needs about half a million day laborers every season to pick olives, figs and grapes. They examined the refugees' hands to see if they were rough and calloused. Those who assume that they are going to work, and know even a few words of Italian and the name of the village they are headed to, miss out. A concrete example of how the fight for human rights and freedom of speech turns into a police search for cheap labor. We focused on wage earners and worked with them. We recorded Fortress Europe, a successful film that is still playing at festivals and on television. The "exiles of Europe", in this case, are officials and intellectuals. Europe, with empty pockets and stooped shoulders, drove them back where they came from.

You mentioned the famous Kennedy trilogy. How did it come about??

In 2002, a friend from the Novi Sad settlement of Adice asked me if I knew someone who had a good command of German or Scandinavian languages. Many boys and girls arrived from Europe, between 13 and 18 years old. They don't know Serbian, they can't continue their education, nor can they manage. I go to see who the newcomers are. And that - cultured young men and women, they lived and grew up and were educated in Europe. They arrived there when they were 4-5 years old, when their families were fleeing our wars in the nineties. The police broke into their apartment the other night, forced their parents to urgently pack what could fit into a couple of suitcases. They will be taken to the airport. Early in the morning, the plane leaves for Belgrade. I thought that someone in the family must be dealing drugs or doing some other crime. But no, they came under the influence of the EU agreement with Serbia, Bosnia and Macedonia, that refugees return home because peace and democracy reigned in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. There is nothing in the media about these mass transports, nor about the signed interstate contracts.

When we asked how we could help them, they said: you have a camera, record video letters, let's contact our acquaintances and schoolmates. They say we disappeared during the night, they probably think we were arrested or killed. We have no computer, telephone, internet. We recorded a dozen video messages and promised to send them to the email addresses they gave us. We were looking for an institution, city, social, school, that could help. Everyone shrugged. We organized several public debates in Belgrade and Novi Sad, where recorded materials were projected. A representative of the German consulate joined the talks in Belgrade, in the CZKD, presenting information that the state of Serbia received a certain amount of money for each returnee received. There is a murmur in the hall. Young diplomats excitedly explain in German that not a single dinar has reached the families.

The next day, at the Ministry of Police in New Belgrade, we try to get an explanation of what it is about. They won't accept us. They are acting crazy. They forbid us to film the arrival of deportees at the airport. A few days later, a phone call from Germany. A female voice introduced itself. She is Claudia Roth, a member of the Green Party in the Bundestag. They heard from the German consulate about the problems of the expelled families. Her party is part of the ruling coalition. Joška Fischer, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, is their president. They want to send a commission to investigate the case, because in the parliament the Greens strongly criticize the policy of inhumane expulsion. In a few days, three deputies arrive in Novi Sad. We refer them to the address in the settlement of Adice. MPs call in the evening for coffee. Their eyes are full of tears. They say that they saw the terrible conditions in which people live. They condemn, as they explain, "populist measures" of expulsion. They say, Germany needs manpower. They ask me to give her the recorded materials, to show in the parliament. I say I can't do that. The material is not complete, as this question requires.

Dobro, but a feature film Kennedy returns home. you still made it. Did they help complete the film?

Yes. I explained that we were shooting on video and they needed a copy for the big screen. Therefore, the material must be transferred to a 35 mm negative, and no film laboratory in Serbia does this. In addition, I need another ten days of work, to show and analyze the topic from several sides. The lady from Zeleni says to write a work plan and expenses. They will finance. In order to film a more complete story, I needed a character that would connect multiple families and different experiences. In Adice, we did a test recording with the returned returnees. We chose Kennedy Hassani, an expressive phenomenon. He was "kicked out" ten days ago. He spoke German, Italian, Serbian, Roma and Ashkali. Authentic on screen, skilled in communication, he proved to be an iconic symbol of this theme. We edited the film. It was presented and discussed in the parliaments of three German states, as well as in the federal parliament. I participated in a dozen screenings and forums in Cologne, Hanover, Dortmund, Stuttgart.

The most intriguing was at a high-level meeting called the Asylpolitisches Forum Deutschland. It is headed by the Minister of the Interior. The minister for social affairs and a cardinal also took part in that forum. A film about Kennedy was shown, which impressed them. The most interesting were two reactions. First, the Minister of the Interior presented the numbers on the "eviction" action and the costs of that action. He then stated that everyone knows that there are no real reasons for that nightly police fuss and panic throughout Germany. It is done only to appease the rhetoric and hatred of the right-wing. Then the cardinal stood up, dejected: "Gentlemen, I must say that before God we sin our souls by these inhumane measures." In the next two years we made two more films with Kennedy, which participated in many festivals, all over the world.

Kennedy Hasani also received the award for the best male role at the former Film Festival of Serbia in Novi Sad.

Yes, it was in 2007. Those were the years when the new film elite played Khan, so the actors were brought to the Serbian National Theater in pre-war limousines. And the entire jury was made up of foreign film artists. The president was the Scandinavian director and actor Fridrik Thor Fridriksson. He reads: "This year, the best actor in Serbia is Kennedy Hassani." Come to receive 5.000 euros." Chaos in the hall, shouts of indignation. Kennedy exits, calms the uproar. "Dear colleagues," he says to the disgruntled actors, "next year, throw more garbage and paper in the streets, so that I have more work and income." So I won't be your competition."

The president of the jury asks Kennedy, they talk in German: "Do you speak French?" "No, but I'm good at Italian." Friedrichsson explained that they needed just such a character for a film directed by Lars von Trier in North Africa. "They also speak Italian there," says Kennedy. Fridriksson agreed and asked if he was free to come to Copenhagen in ten days, he would buy him a plane ticket. We are going to Iceland for a short shoot. "It's a cold country, you mentioned Africa," Kennedy replies. "We'll be in Iceland for the first week." "You just go to those icebergs, and pick me up when you go to Africa," Kennedy concluded the negotiations. Here are examples of those exiled from Europe who survived the persecution!

We have talked a lot about European exiles. And who are the exiles in Serbia today??

Good question. If we answer him, flipping through the most circulated newspapers and following the most watched television channels, President Vučić is experiencing the most severe persecution. That's what all MPs say when they give speeches in the National Assembly. At the same time, I read in low-circulation newspapers that the media that fill their pages with texts about the persecution of Vučić are under the control of his party. I see the same thing on the Internet, that the most prominent daily and weekly newspapers of the world also claim it. The knots are big and heavy. The president was so impressed by the slander they exposed him to, that he memorized all the worst ugly words and derogatory expressions. And in his numerous statements on television, he repeats these inappropriatenesses. It's uncomfortable for me to listen to, in my late years. I roam the Internet, googling Šolak, Đilas and Sergej Trifunović, in order to find on which occasion these brazen people uttered those obscenities. I can't find it. I remain confused. Like everyone around this topic, I mean, propaganda strategy.

Without hesitation, however, I can answer that the most persecuted in recent years, everywhere, are migrants. They are more persecuted than Vučić, sorry. Huge walls are being built against them, canals are being dug, barbed wire is being stretched. Mad dogs are released. Policemen are charging with batons and gas bombs. Lethal ammunition is also used.

The axiom of our age is the freedom of movement of people, goods and capital, and the borders seem to have never been tighter?

Why was this freedom of movement declared by the capitalist world, and today the whole world is capitalist? Plants were enthusiastically opened in countries where workers were paid less than in headquarters. It's so beautiful. The gate of new colonialism is wide open! In order to draw the remaining resources of ores, oil, wood, precious metals. Military interventions were quickly initiated if profits were threatened.

I also remember what I saw with my own eyes. We were shooting a movie in Gabon. The country is too rich in resources. The local population attends schools in French. He sings songs by Yves Montana and Edith Piaf. But he cannot find employment at the construction sites of highways, ports, cutting expensive teak wood. The Chinese or Hindu brothers give a loan, but they also bring tens of thousands of workers... And how is it in those areas where the states have collapsed in order to extract resources by shortcut. I mean Libya, Iraq, and many Central African countries. Now, we ask ourselves, with a finger on our forehead: where did the stampede to Europe come from in Africa and the Middle East?

photo: lorenz seidler

Let's go back to home ground. When you were recording in the late eighties An old machine, a film about the rise of Milosevic and ethno-nationalism, could you have guessed what will happen to us in the past thirty years? It seems as if from that "old machines" we never went out?

I would rather say that it crushed us so much that we came out of it ready to move from a verbal local coup d'état to armed war operations. And a further political-smuggling-careeristic tragic dance around SAO Krajina, around Vukovar and Sarajevo. To Srebrenica, Kosovo and back. The arranged procession of "spontaneous protesters" that arrived in Novi Sad by train from Belgrade in June 1988 seemed, already at first glance, like a bunch of extras from Bulajić's films. They acted according to the agreed scenario. They argued that the previous day they had been in a meeting with Milosevic and received instructions on how to overthrow the provincial "armchair set". Milosevic simply wanted to replace Vojvodina cadres with his own in the leadership positions in the federation. That aggressiveness was transparent and dangerous, because it destroyed the constitutional foundations. But that was her intention.

Already a year earlier, in the confrontation with the President of Serbia, Ivan Stambolic, otherwise his best friend until then, Sloba-Sloboda established the postulate that the leading force in society is not the working class, which was an axiom until then, but the nation. That principled salto mortale actually meant a step towards National Socialism. No one formulated it publicly, but the sequence of events confirms that the communists of Serbia, and accordingly the leadership of other republics, "reset themselves ideologically". It is fascinating how reflexively the passion of the tribal gathering spread, and the anger of the united crowd flared up. Let's start defending our possessions and rights. If we really have to, we will rob others... Has the material and moral damage produced by the "people who happened" ever been calculated? With the baton of national leaders.

On the other hand, would the practice and principles of the socialist system, such as: possession of a passport that allows free entry into all countries of the world except Albania, provision of housing for workers, opening of jobs and employment of experts, free studies and solid health care, solid pensions, guaranteed annual vacations at the sea and in the mountains - could ever be annulled if not brought chaos and fear? And the biggest inflation in the history of mankind and a fratricidal war. If it didn't exist, would Serbia, Croatia and everyone else have their new elite, bosses and rich people? Who, instead of them, could celebrate the return of capitalism?

What was it like filming? An old machine while on the street, how do you say that?, "happened people"?

After half an hour of listening to and observing the protesters, I rushed to Television Novi Sad to try to organize the team. Thinking that it is important to document something that seemed to me to be like a regional earthquake that will be felt from Đevđelia to Triglav. The director of Television Andrija Maitenji explained to me that he "does not have the authority" to film the demonstrations at the Vojvodina Executive Council!? I should call Belgrade. I call the journalist Neša Ristić, then director of RTB, who tells me that the filming of the rally is not done by television, but by special crews. We scattered and somehow collected the team and equipment one after the other. And a group of actors, so we escorted the "anti-bureaucratic revolution" around the cities of Vojvodina.

The film will best illustrate the comment of Alexander Tishma, when he saw it. He sighed, raised his eyebrows and continued: "This is how it was in the spring of 1941, when I was graduating from the Novi Sad high school. There were thirty of us in the class. Serbs, Hungarians, Slovaks, Jews, some Swabians. We were best friends. They visited each other's houses. They went to the beach and dances. They played sports. In a week or two, Horti's policemen arrived. The Wehrmacht army advanced eastward with heavy equipment. Arrests and persecutions began within a month or two. The Jews were rounded up, to be sent to the camps. Out of thirty of us in the class, in 1944, when the Russians came, there were eleven of us. It seems to me that this is waiting for us again," said Tishma.

It is impossible not to mention the pandemic that has changed our lives so dramatically. All this happening reminds of some kind of negative utopia: pandemic, quarantine, states of emergency, curfew... How do you perceive all this as a person who is used to traveling extensively around the world?

It all leads us to think how the rules and habits of life can be changed quickly on a global level. How is freedom limited by a decree issued by an incompetent or incompetent body or person. Which is arbitrary, imprecise, unverifiable. I see that people all over the world, out of fear of disease or government, are easily trained. Following the research and the worldwide race to develop a vaccine the fastest, it is hard to avoid thinking that similar research could encourage countries with conflicting interests or terrorist clans to create a virus more dangerous and transmissible than the one we hide from by wearing masks, until come the vaccine.

How did the pandemic affect filmmaking??

Many professions, including the recording and distribution of moving images, have changed. Thousands of movie theaters are closed, permanently, in the biggest cities of the world. The buildings have already been sold and are being converted into apartments and shops. Online distribution, rather than gala premieres, is also announced for Hollywood spectacles. I read and hear from colleagues, independent authors, that there was an unexpected shift due to such distribution. Previously, they could not financially cover advertising, renting halls for premieres, press conferences. Now that all movies are on online platforms, some low-budget movies have seen two-three times in viewership. And some financial effect is achieved that way.