SPITE
Andrijana Stojković
BaBoon Production, Serbia
While fighting for a custody of his daughter Ivan, Bosnian war veteran, is trying to lead an exemplary life but his past haunts him materialized in Basset, a ghost of a Syrian man.
The end of winter. Bosnian war veteran IVAN (49) works as a gamekeeper next to border between Serbia and Bosnia. Living in dark wood and surrounded with wild animals gives him both serenity and scare. Ivan’s voluntary exile is occasionally interrupted with secret night visits to his daughter KATJA (7) in a small town nearby. Until one day unusual fog appears in the woods. It just announces the appearance of BASSET (35), an Arab man with meek eyes and scarred body. Basset seems to be migrating from Middle East on foot and by himself.
Ivan captures Basset and treats him like a prisoner. But he doesn’t hand him over to authorities. With Basset’s presence the woods become more clinging and mystical but it also evokes brutality in Ivan. He keeps Basset tied in ropes, sleeping on the chair, make him stay without clothes and in the cold. Basset puts up with Ivan’s wickedness with patience and inhuman strength. The worse Ivan is to Basset, the weaker he becomes.
One day Ivan meets a gamekeeper colleague ADAM (56) in a café across the border, in Bosnia. They encounter a group of men who recognize Ivan and who start to insult him because of his mixed ancestry: his mother was Muslim and his father was Christian. Ivan manages to leave but in his cabin later that night, Ivan – very drunk – brutally beats Basset.
In the morning Ivan wakes up tied with ropes and bruised. Basset takes him to his daughter and leaves. Ivan comes after him determined to shoot him. He finds Basset trying to swim across river rapids. He gets into water but doesn’t manage to help Basset. While fighting with river stream he notices Basset standing – his clothes dry - on the other river bank. Ivan gets to the shore. His ghost Basset is gone.
Director’s biography: Andrijana Stojković/ IMDb
She’s an assistant professor of Documentary Directing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. She holds an MA in Film and TV directing and is a PhD candidate at Doctoral Art Studies in Drama and Audiovisual Arts. She’s the author of 7 short fiction films, 8 short documentary films; 2 mid-length documentaries and 1 feature fiction film.
Her films were screened and awarded at festivals like IDFA, HotDocs, Rotterdam, FidMarseille, Raindance, Sofia, Krakow, Havana, etc. Also her films were broadcasted on YLE and Canal+.
She is president of DOKSerbia - Documentary Filmmakers of Serbia.
Producer’s biography: Mirko Bojović / IMDb
Mirko Bojović graduated at Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade in 2000. 1991 He started his career at TV station “Studio B” as video editor. Between 1994 And 2000, parallel with studies, he worked as TV editor on all major TV stations in country. In year 2000 he joined production house ARHITEL and in addition to the editing, Mirko began working as a line and executive producer.
From 2005 he worked in UN as editor, director and producers for various documentaries.
In 2007 with his long time friend and colleague Vuk Ršumović started BABOON PRODUCTION.
Mirko is member of EFA.
Where are we at?
Estimated production budget: 242.572,00 EUR
Financing in place: N/A
Production timeline:
Writing script: January to December 2020
Call for applications at Film Centre Serbia: February 2021
Call for minority co-production in Portugal: August 2021
Applications in regions of former Yugoslavia for minority co-production: summer of 2021
Eurimages: December 2021
Preproduction: January-February 2022
Shooting: March-April 2022
Postproduction: May-August 2022
World premiere: September 2022
Looking for at CineLink?
We are looking for co-producers from the region of former Yugoslavia and to meet with potential sales agents
Director’s statement
This film is urgent. Because we witness the right wing policies being more and more dominant around Europe. In my country war and its consequences are still very present. The feeling is that the war machinery is always in motion and that it’s “eating” our reality. But it’s fed by society which doesn’t deal with these issues of killing, doesn’t discuss it or try to overcome it. We are “burying” inside us traumas individually but we suffer collectively. And we are all connected on this planet. Some might say economically but I believe it is spiritually. That is why Bosnian war veteran’s ghost is a Syrian man.
Since it’s an interior struggle between a man and his ghost, with its filmic manifestation reality, we thought that the best – and the most natural – setting for this struggle to take place would be the woods. So we have: the woods, two men and a cabin. Plus a bit of rope, one rusty trap, one rifle and one car. Some would call these limitations, we call them sources of inspiration.
Producer's statement
My personal connection with this story is that I strongly believe that it needs to be told as some kind of our answer to already established political power of the right wing politicians and the direction in which they are moving our world.
Andrijana and I were studding together, she is talented filmmaker and I believe she can extend her recent successes with her documentary WONGAR.
It is going to be low-budget movie, and in term of financing our plan is to get money in Serbia and to find one co-producer in the region of former Yugoslavia to close our financing. The shooting location for this film is in Southwest Serbia, on Mountain Tara, just next to the Drina river which is a natural boarder between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Our intention is to have late autumn and early winter in our picture, so we are planning to have 18 shooting days in November 2021 with a crew of maximum 12 people whose background is working in low-budget production environment and whom we worked before.
Production Company profile
BABOON PRODUCTION is Belgrade production company founded in 2007 by established film and television authors with credits from more than120 short and long feature films, documentaries, TV programmes and series as directors, scriptwriters, editors, producers, co-producers, executive producers and line producers. Our aim is to develop cinematographic projects inside the Serbian and global audiovisual panorama. It is centered on European co-production market. So far, our biggest success is feature film NO ONE'S CHILD (2014) triple winner of International Critic’s Week at Venice Film Festival
Email: mirkobojo@gmail.com