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Goran Paskaljevic
(Belgrade, Serbia, 1947) studied at the renowned FAMU cinema school in Prague. He has made 30 documentaries and 15 feature films, shown and acclaimed at the most prestigious international film festivals (including Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Toronto and San Sebastian). The rise of nationalism in Yugoslavia forced him to leave his country in 1992. In 1998 he went back to make Cabaret Balkan, which won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Venice Film Festival and the European Film Awards. In 2001, the Variety International Film Guide included him among the top five international directors of the year. In January 2008, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a full retrospective of his work.
During Enver Hodxa’s cruel, forty-year dictatorship, no one from Serbia was allowed to visit neighboring Albania, over whose soil were scattered several hundred thousand defense bunkers. Today, after the conflicts in Kosovo, still only a very small number of Serbs decide to visit Albania. Prejudice and bad politics have contributed to a latent intolerance between the two nations. During my first stay in Albania in December of 2006, I met many intellectuals who thought like I did, who were beyond any kind of fiery nationalism. I discovered that Albanians and Serbs, although they speak two completely different languages, have much in common, notably the deep desire to become an integral part of Europe. The idea arose to make a movie together, which I imagined as a triptych. Paradoxically, the characters in the film never meet, as would usually be the case in standard films. Ultimately, however, one has the impression that these young people are in the same imaginary space, as they wait on the threshold of Europe. Similarly, the Serbian and Albanian actors have never met, even though they acted in the same movie. Their first meeting will be at the Venice Film Festival.
Goran Paskaljevic
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