Film New Europe - Popular novels inspire many films in East of the West competition

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Popular novels inspire many films in East of the West competition

05 July 2007

By Anna Franklin in Karlovy Vary

Popular novels by local writers often serve as inspiration for filmmakers, but the journey from concept to completion may differ substantially from one film to the next. Film New Europe describes the making of three such films in the KVIFF East of the West competition -- from Serbia, Slovakia and Macedonia.

The Trap, a Serbian-Hungarian-German co-production directed by Srdan Golubovic and produced by Film House Bas Celik (email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ), Mediopolis GmbH (email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) and Uj Budapest Filmstudio (www.budapestfilm.hu)

Bavaria Film Sees Strong World Sales for International Prize Winner The Trap

The Trap, a Serbian film based on a popular novel of the same name by Nenad Teofilovic, arrives in Karlovy Vary with a string of international prizes to its name including the Grand Prix at the Sofia Film Festival and the Teplice Festival and the Best Director and FIPRESCI prize at the Wiesbaden Film Festival. World sales for the film are being handled by Bavaria Film, which has already sold it for theatrical release in Romania and Benelux and is in talks with US distributors for a theatrical release. The Trap was released in eight prints in Serbia and had an audience of 55,000, which is very successful for a domestic film. It will be released by Progress Film in Germany (www.progress-film.de) in September with 35 prints. In Hungary it will be distributed by Best Hollywood (www.besthollywood.hu).

The director describes the film as a Balkan Crime and Punishment that he hopes will give audiences an insight into post-Milosevic Serbia. A young couple who teach in Belgrade lead a fairly normal middle-class existence until they discover their 10-year-old son needs a heart operation to save his life and they cannot afford it.

Riding high on a string of successes, director Golubovic arrives in Karlovy Vary full of optimism. "This is the Cannes of the East and I am happy to be here as the East of the West programme is very well attended and KVIFF audiences are very young and enthusiastic," he said.

Facing the Enemy, a Slovak production directed by Patrik Lancaric and produced by Farbyka (www.farbyka.sk) and Damit (www.damit.sk)

Slovak Indie Goes It Alone

Facing the Enemy (www.aic.sk/aic/en/main-page/new-slovak-film-in-cinemas.html), a film completed by Slovak first-time director Patrik Lancaric on a budget of half a million euros, may be Slovakia's first true indie production. Most Slovak films receive a substantial part of their budget from the Ministry of Culture, but the 34-year-old Bratislava theatre director was already halfway through shooting his film when he tried to get a government grant - and failed.

"We just decided to do it on our own," said Lancaric, who is in Karlovy Vary where the film will have its

international premiere. "We had a professional team of actors and crew but most of them were working for free because they believed in the project."

Their faith seems to be justified because the film has already been distributed in Slovakia by ITA Film (www.itafilm.sk) and picked up for world sales by EastWest Filmdistribution (www.eastwest-distribution.com), a US-UK-Austrian outfit that specializes in Central European product. The film is slated for a September release date in the Czech Republic and is also set to be released theatrically in Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland.

Facing the Enemy is based on the novel of the same name by Slovak writer Leopold Lahola. The Jewish writer is well known in Israel and Germany. One of Slovakia's most important cultural figures, the author was almost erased from Slovak history by the communists and only in recent years became well known in Slovakia again.

"Lahola is this incredible person whose whole family was killed by the Nazis in extermination camps and yet he wrote this book just after the war. The main character is a German soldier and he looks at this soldier as a human being, not a monster," said Lancaric. "After Lahola left Slovakia in 1948 to live in Israel, the communists deleted him from our history. We hope this film will help to put him back where he belongs in Slovak culture."

Upside Down, a Macedonian film directed by Igor Ivanov and produced by Sektor Film Production (www.sektorfilm.mk) and Mainframe Film Production (www.mainframeproduction.com)

Big-Budget Film for a Small Country

The €1.2 million Macedonian production Upside Down, which has its world premier in Karlovy Vary this week, is a big-budget production for a country with population of 2 million that produces one or two feature films a year. The Macedonian Ministry of Culture pumped €700,000 into the project, the work of first-time feature film director Igor Ivanov. Shot mostly in the Macedonian language with a smattering of English, the film will have to travel to make back its budget so the reaction of audiences in Karlovy Vary is critical.

It's Ivanov's first visit to Karlovy Vary, but he is no stranger to the festival circuit. His short films have won a string of international prizes including the Golden Leopard in Locarno for his 2004 short film Bubachki (Bugs).

"The film is a contemporary story about the period of transition," said Ivanov. "It starts with the fall of communism in the early 1990s. In Macedonia after 17 years we are still living in this so-called period of transition."

As with many of the films in the East of the West programme, the inspiration came from a famous local novelist, in this case the Macedonian Venko Andonovski's book Navel of the World.

Ivanov likes to see the film as continuing the "Black Wave" of Yugoslav cinema of the 1960s which looked at society's afflictions.

Hungarian director and scriptwriter Judit Elek

“I read Film New Europe every day. It provides very good information. It’s very very useful. I don’t have time to read many magazines or journals. FNE is the best and if I read this I get all the necessary imformation. All the important news about what has happened is there in FNE. Especially what is happening in our own neighbourhood, in the neighbouring countries. I like FNE because you can find out where is the money and what the other filmmakers are making. For me it’s very important."