While i have been making my first feature fiction film, the life around me has been going on, inevitably heading to our older age and minds more experienced. Or this should be the case for all times passing by, because that is what times do. they pass by, weather we move on or not.
Arrow of time helps us understand the spacetime
life and reality surrounding me, my crew and our fiction story, seam not to have moved much forward in development! When i started this blog, Karadzic was the top news, then all the silly protests against his arrest as well as all intriguing truths about his last years… all together giving even more solid grounds to the nationalists and the moderates joined together in big idea of never giving up on Kosova. Their strong alliance on that matter tells a lot about the dilemma they offer when it comes to voting for ones or others on elections, or simply taking sides in popular political discussions/if they may be called discussions, given the fact that all parts operate with no more then phrases and general points. Indeed, on every corner in Belgrade people talk politics, even passionately, using simplified theories made out of either national myths and emotional interpretations of history, or out of a twisted version of politically correct speech adopted quickly from western cultures, without thinking it through, but just reducing to a couple of rules, so that some legitimacy is automatically implied, like pride and honour are implied in stories of the so called opposed side… shortly, dilemma radicals or moderates can only fool the fools, i mean to say
I used to think the shooting would be done by the time Sarah joins me again, but she's come and gone and the shooting isn't finished. In between my shooting days and those of despair, one day or rather one night, I had to look at the back of the leaving train again... At least this time, Sarah has left something or someone very important that I will tell about another time.
When I started making my film, same things and dilemas kept going on. Another example proving my point may be spotted in recent separation of Toma Nikolic and his followers from the Mother radical. Oh, the dignity of this act is comparable to division of Christian Church into Catholic and Orthodox! Such a big moment! Are there really such among us who do not see that it is all about the principles, and that some politicians really remain truthful to their principles as all politicians are expected to? Toma remains. Let us believe in him. As we are freshly reminded that party politics doesn’t break principals it has once presented, as we are reminded that politicians tell the truth and nothing but the truth, they only mind the common good and never their individual interests, and if the opposite happens, Toma will be there for us. Only, it remains a little unexplainable how things got to the point where every and any alliance is possible: the not so long ago forever sworn enemies forming governments together, or majority in the parliament… Those whose rule has led the country into many wars, and who have been denounced as the initiators of national euphoria, those who led the citizens to believe that it was just to slaughter people around in neighboring countries, today are seen as “changed, truly socialist by believes, restructured and new, fresh and desirable as partners”… it cannot be that their ex enemies are only desperately looking for a way to remain in power, one way or an other. Really, I find myself living in a place where Kostunica is not different then Tadic, Tadic is not different then Dacic, Dacic is not different then Nikolic, Nikolic is not different then Kostunica, Kostunica is not different then Milosevic, Milosevic is not different then Seselj, Seselj is not different then Dacic, Dacic is not different then Nikolic, Nikolic is not different then Tadic, Tadic is not different then Seselj… maybe, really, only Nikolic and Seselj are indeed a little bit different, but only the two of them. i will allow myself the assumption that they have only transferred their personal differences or disagreements onto public, party or political level.
Tricks are many.
The rest of the world is, as ever, rapidly heading into the design of the world and its economy, system of values, and legal system, so well revealed out in cyberpunk literature, in novels by for example Bruce Sterling, my favourite. He reminds us that Hollywood imposes way too dangerous a trend, with all the capturing the young age forever/fighting for eternal life, that is, symbolically/. he reminds us about the tendency of the rule of capital, tendency to make an even firmer division between the rich and the poor, division given never to be changed. Sterling gives a detailed image of the world in which us, poor, will go for cheep surgery dangerous to our health, to gain our memory and bodily extensions and improvements, just to cope with the new genetic standards or to achieve the level of personal capacity so that we can serve a multiple purpose jobs to the rich; the world in which heroes are people from margins in situations of some blackmail, so they fight against a strong system and often operate on black markets of information to save their own miserable existence, still being the only ones fighting the all mighty machine of rulers of the planet. Heroes are often hackers who oppose the highest authorities and their intelligence organizations, criminals that is. In such novels, Serbia could only be one of the places for off shore business, where all scum along with all the jet set, does the money laundry, (although there is no such word as money in carefully designed cyber punk realities, and if it is mentioned, it comes as a long forgotten term that has to be explained by a savant tout to an ordinary character). So cyber punk heroes usually have to get to such areas, where all technology exists as in developed world they come from, only not all of its use is controlled. Some of it is just in a parallel system. Also, such places still have in use technologies that are old, and not possible to track by the most recent recipients of all movements, changes, transfers, events, feelings, thoughts. That would be the place of Serbia in cyber punk world. Interestingly enough, cyber punk treats such shit holes as places of hope, in a certain way: only in such places can a person find his or her real intimacy, time alone not controlled by any recipient that sends all info straight to the data base. Wow! In all cyber punk books, the place i see as a potential place for serbia has been reserved for asian countries. Nothing is accidental: piracy starts and develops in the poor countries such as India, Pakistan… Serbia. Places that never had money to afford licensed technology, developed in developed countries. But by minds that were bought for not much money on the market of cheep labor force – in developing countries, to put it politically correct. Even though the term is so untrue, we are being held backwards by our own decisions in politics, and by all actions of foreign investments…
Correct, mentally correct.
I do not get it, why does the politically correct language has to become hypocritical? Third world countries still sounds better; underdeveloped, or poor would be the truth. some, asian and african mainly, could even be called exploited countries. of all the names, the one in official use is a biggest lie! anyhow, potential is in places presented as black holes, wild west, banana states, the poor and the hated, the corrupt and dirty, the plague of humanity and of the planet! not to mention that many other authors, in other times and different directions of literature, used to find, in their imagined realities of the future world, that hope would lay there where there is dirt and poverty, in places to which even god has turned his back, and exactly for that reason! lack of interest, lack of control. so, my idea is, that we should all read more of cyber punk:) what a joke! is there a thing i would hate more then serbs interpreting cyberpunk literature as antiglobalist warning? no. cyberpunk is very globalist! if it explores on human vanity abusing science and directing it to find a formula for eternal life, or eternal youth, if it dives deep into the idea of living much longer lives then we do today, it only proves it is serious! because if anything will change the whole system of values, the way we think and relate to life, then that is the duration of average life changing from 70 to 370 years of age! i am so afraid that people from serbia would miss the major point clearly written to them, because of having contaminated mind, and thinking only locally, believing that big changes can only be if they happen to prove serbian innocence in front of the victimized bosnians, albanians, croats etc.
I have just filmed “The State”. Or as I said, i have one more step, two more steps to go, to have all my material filmed, and i will hang on. tomorow is the day for it. In it i tell i know what state is. life brings practice that can teach us, if we listen and notice carefully, many things, to build up on our education. Revealing the knowledge of how one state operates is much more dangerous then filming a story about one rebel that has ideals and fights for justice. My heroine is in her situation because of her private life, just like cyber punk heros. She is not a puritan, nor perfect. She is just smart. The film follows her process of understanding state’s practice when it comes to wanting an information. before, she used to teach about it. now she lives it. She is the one to put up the price, not the one to moralize. This film is in genre of spy movies. Very low budget. American genre in european style. Aware of itself, that is. Europe is too old to be innocent in knowledge, even though film production of my country is trying to prove the opposite. to prove its innocence, its ignorance. I say, we know. I say, it has all been said and written. I say, we read it. I say, we know.
Think.
Knowledge represents danger, in my country. Not heroes who fight the system. Heroes who fight the system in fiction only fill in the hole left for subversions. systems always count with subversions, that’s why they leave some place for them. Then they sponsor subversions against them selves, and it is all controlled. Further more, even set on the margine of my country’s system, i do not just sit there accepting it. I say, i create an other system, where i hold my share of power, that lays in creativity and knowledge. And i speak as an aqual to the established state sponsored artists. I dare say, I value my own perspective more highly. I say what I see. That comes out more dangerous then any condemnation.
It is only logical that this film is small. One film too much for Serbia. As if Serbia hasn’t got a poor nuber of films produced per year. I have started feeling flattered that my films are always those too many, never shown unless explicitly asked for by other countries. And that so far has been my distribution, even though i still have no diplomatic, routine connections in film abroad.
They say life is not a game. I honestly go further believing that game is a serious part of life.
To conclude, i will put up words that are almost a drawing: in previous post, i promised to write about the address to which i am sending a message of my film. About whom I want to see it. Yes, I want it to be seen in my country. Yes, I want it seen everywhere. Yes, it speaks from inside the legitimate place of one system, not the place reserved for subversions. It seams so forgiving to the state that has been pushing my films aside. Yes, that makes “The State” unplesantly subversive.
People, I'm so serious, I've only met two people as serious as me. Almost both are women.
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Invisible Sights 