Message from Kustendorf Film Festival
Seated at the computer, I was flicking through my inbox when a message from Nana K displayed... inquiring whether I would make an appearance at the festival in Serbia. It took me awhile to reconsider that, my first answer being no as I didn’t feel like going anywhere. Well, it had just been a tedious week. Then I realized who the invitation was coming from, the sender being Nana Kusturica herself J The opportunity to present Arsy-Versy to Emir Kusturica along with his guest for this year, Johnny Depp, was convincing enough.
Seated at the computer, I was flicking through my inbox when a message from Nana K displayed... inquiring whether I would make an appearance at the festival in Serbia. It took me awhile to reconsider that, my first answer being no as I didn’t feel like going anywhere. Well, it had just been a tedious week. Then I realized who the invitation was coming from, the sender being Nana Kusturica herself J The opportunity to present Arsy-Versy to Emir Kusturica along with his guest for this year, Johnny Depp, was convincing enough.
After a one and a half hour flight we landed at Nikolu Teslu airoport<<<<to be, along with some more folks, collected by the driver. Another four hours of driving along the Serbian roads finally brought us to the spot. As I learnt later on, my French co-passengers happened to be the producers of Emir Kusturica’s new film, still in the works. I suddenly found myself in an open air museum on a hill with streets bearing the names of the world’s eminent directors, the whole place being lit up with a huge ball-shaped film light which from a distance was reminiscent of the moon. The must-be technicalities arranged, I was given the keys to the cottage to to put my stuff down.
Upon entering the house I was taken aback by what first seemed an unpleasant surprise but eventually turned out quite fun; there were four of us sleeping on three beds, two single and one double – apparently, I was the last one to arrive. I went back to the receptionist wondering whether there had been some kind of misunderstanding and was assured everything was perfectly all right; there were just too many guests attending the festival… So I left the luggage on the double-bed and went out searching for the local soup kitchen. Serbian cuisine is great, I must say. It wasn’t until three days later that I first bumped into my bed-mate. Till then we had been passing each other, either taking turns in the bed or simply not having an opportunity to speak – each time I got up Rodrigo had either left or was still asleep. I learnt later that Rodrigo came from Sao Paulo, Brazil. The remaining two mates were Mike from Switzerland and Nikolaj from Bulgaria.
We first talked the other night in a local pub with Emir Kusturica and Johny Depp drinking alongside us.
I had a week crammed with films ahead of me; these were both student films as well as the „real ones“ With each film there was the director, too, so each feature was followed by a discussion. Films such as Kitchen Soul or About Elly were part of the good-quality selection and a great source of energy and inspiration for me as well as my future projects. The well-structured programme allowed the cinema goers to see all of the 28 films. On top of that, with the screenings scheduled for after one p.m. everyone had plenty of time to recover from the regular late-night booze – I must say I never managed my breakfast. Thanks to that I made it to see all the films I intended to.
Compared to the Slovak student filmmaking, the quality of the films presented then was rather high. In fact, there were only two documentaries competing with a number of features; first there was a Czech documentary called Bába, a story of a beautiful young girl in charge of her aged soon-to-die grandmother. Cannes-awarded, Baba also won a lot of recognition from the Kustendorf jury, presided over by Sara Driver, the producer of The Limits of Control by Jim Jarmush. Arsy-Versy was met with huge acclaim from the audience; lengthy applause accompanying the final credits along with the never-ending congratulations that followed, felt great. I was giving away DVDs in large amounts. Even got approached by a Macedonian TV reporter to whom I gave an interview conducted in my broken English; the whole thing took place in one of the „open-air-museum“ bars and he turned out an agreeable gentleman who very much enjoyed my film.
Kustendorf was a films and music week. Every night we attended an exciting midnight gig. Funnily enough, the least interesting of all happened to be the performance of „Emir Kusturica and (the?) no smoking orchestra“ world-famous local band, overcrowded though, well, that’s the way it goes.
Emir also ran an interesting workshop on the direction of the contemporary filmmaking and commercialsm struggle. What he said brought me back to uni (VSMU – Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts Bratislava), felt like Vlado Balco lectures (VSMU teacher). I didn’t hear anything I hadn’t heard before, yet, was delighted to hear the same words coming from a great, internationally acclaimed director who, most importantly, is an independent one. Kusturica was pointing out the mill of commercial production and its impact on filmmakers’ independance. An independent film, says Kusturica, requires the full focus, not fragmentary attempts nor the usual oscillating between the independent and the commercial –two highly incompatible areas. Having antiglobalisation in mind he pointed out the particularities of Europe alone, its diversities, unique film-related artistic value and the capability „to create a better world“. Just remain strong and don’t give in!
The most radiant and best protected festival star was Johny Depp, currently world’s best paid actor, who owes Kusturica for appearing in his highly acclaimed independent „Arizona Dream“. Johnny visited for three days and was positively centre-staged; after the helicopter took him away, things finally calmed down. Somehow more enjoyable, the festival suddenly gained on intimacy. Yet, I have to say it certainly was worth meeting Johny Depp for a couple of short moments. I gave him an Arsy-Versy DVD and we took a picture. He seemed a nice guy, didn’t have much liberty with bodyguards behind his back though. A world star of such stature backed up by future million dollar deals with the world’s biggest film studios must be taken care of insanely well.
Now you can see the Arsy-Versy here: 
http://vimeo.com/miroremo/arsy-versy
More informations about this film festival:
http://www.kustendorf-filmandmusicfestival.org/
Photos from festival in this section: PHOTOS