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Szolnok Conference 04: Trans Europa Express
How to Make Movies
in a Small Country in Changing Europe?
By Thomas Kurelec

After the fall of communism, the cinema of the ex-socialist countries experienced a lot of important changes. The strong ideological censorship was gone and filmmakers had much more freedom to express their opinions and to critically observe the nearest past and the social changes that happened after. It could seem paradoxical that in the beginning greater freedom of expression gave, mostly, weaker results regarding film quality. Most filmmakers could not resist the temptation to directly express what earlier on they had to show through metaphors and symbols. As also in other parts of art, direct approach to art decreases the quality of the work.

In the time of the socialist regimes filmmakers had to show their ideas through more complex procedures. These ideas could rarely be seen through dialogue but would be predominantly suggested with moving pictures, and not only with metaphors and symbols but with all film elements from camera to production and costume design. Sometimes even the whole film looked like it was saying something different than the original theme. For instance historical films were often telling a story about revolutions and dictators, emphasizing the elements that could be related to present happenings. This could be seen in some of the best films of the great Hungarian director Miklós Jancsó in which he portraits the history of his country. Sometimes even the past dogmatism and strong hierarchy of the church would be used to show the mechanisms of the communist party and its destruction of the individual and his private life. Because of the animosity of the ruling regime towards the Church those films would easy avoid censorship while the viewers would be aware of the real message. This unusual combination could achieve great results as clearly seen in Mother Joan of the Angels (Matka Joanna od Aniolów), the masterpiece of Polish director Jerzy Kawalerowicz.

Because of the political changes in the 80`s and 90`s not only the films with the direct message but also the films which used this complex movie techniques did not achieve same results. This was the result of the change in society and the interests of the people. This can be seen on an example of one of the newer Croatian films The Society of Jesus (Družba Isusova, 2004) by Silvio Petranovic which was even successfully played in Shanghai — one of the rare A-category film festivals. The movie tells a story about Jesuits wanting to confiscate the land of a young countess widow in the 17th century. This movie is an adaptation of a novel with the same name written by the well-known Czech writer Jiri Sotola (1924-1989). He wrote his novel during the socialist regime with probably the same motives as Kawalerowicz made his film. The Croatian director wrote his screenplay in similar conditions during the 80`s. The screenplay stayed unchanged for more then 15 years. When it was finally realised it had lost some of its intrigue.

Changes in Financing

Nevertheless, not only the need for a different film style made problems for most of the former socialist countries' cinemas. At the same time less films have been made partially because of the change to market economy. Till then the funds for bigger productions came from the state and also they had help from public television. State's financing partially disappeared and public television found itself in financial problems with the arrival of commercial television. Although public television continued in partially financing films, the amount of money invested decreased. So in some cases the production managed to survive with the help of new private producers. In this newly formed situation financial success of the film became more important then it was the case during the former regimes. The problem was that this was not easily achieved. Not even the popular films (which presented smaller parts of the production in a whole) could return the invested funds. The reason for this was the situation that occurred in smaller countries with not such a high standard of living. In this countries the price of the movie ticket could not be as high. In the past films from these countries played in countries with the same social system. But now the sales abroad were rare because Hollywood blockbusters dominated the film market even in those countries.

In the beginning all these things resulted in a reduction of the number and quality of the films. But through time this negative situation started to change. Some of the older authors developed their style in new circumstances and also some young authors appeared. Afterwards more films were made because of the strong feeling that at least the part of the society had for their cinematography. People became aware that cinematography couldn't survive only on private production, which can hardly pay off. Through time government subventions increased. Mostly thanks to that Croatia is capable with the money from the ministry of culture and the help of Croatian Television to produce 8 films a year, which is a huge increase towards a maximum of 6, which was the situation a few years ago. One can come to a conclusion that we have more luck than other similar countries and yet not all is so idyllic. The biggest problem is that the financing system used before is still actual. This is far from ideal because the producer starts filming only after the film is fully financed and his income secured from these two sources.

In a long term this situation cannot secure the liveliness of cinema. This can be seen in countries where producers really care about the film, and where they try to find alternative ways to finance projects. In addition to the search of the extra money in their own country a lot of producers try to find co-producers abroad and to use European funds (for instance Eurimages) which gives money for that kind of cooperation.

International Co-productions and the National Identity

To awake the interest of foreigners for national projects, the main theme of a film has to attract the public in foreign countries. In that case there is often a fear of loosing the national identity of the cinema. If there is a danger of that happening it disappears quickly because it is almost impossible to make a good film that could happen anywhere and work with some general interests. If we talk about commercial genres, like thrillers and action movies, we can come to the conclusion that they can't compete with the American film industry. On the other hand movies that inspire with their art are mostly so connected to their environment that it is almost impossible to shift them in some other milieu. Exactly on that ability to make a movie which is related to the local environment and at the same time has a universal appeal, can be a film crossing national borders. There are similar problems in many countries but the film authors may show these problems in a specific local way as can be seen in a very successful film Spare Parts (Rezervni Deli, 2003) by Damjan Kozole who shows the Slovenian relation towards illegal immigrants and the human trade. Sometimes events like war in ex-Yugoslavia and its consequences can serve through one of its parts to show horror and suffering which happens in similar ways in all other wars. Good examples of that are the movies by the Croatian director Vinko Bresan: How the War Started on My Island (Kako je poceo rat na mom otoku, 1996) and Witnesses (Svjedoci, 2003) or in Bosnian films like No Man's Land (Nicija zemlja, 2001) by Danis Tanovic and Fuse (Gori vatra, 2003) by Pjer Žalica. In addition to the great quality of the small number of films being made in war demolished Bosnia their cinema is also interesting because of the funding system. In a country that didn't have enough money required for film production, filmmakers were successful in finding foreign producers. Even when all the producers were foreigners Bosnian filmmakers made films that preserved Bosnian film identity.

There are also other possibilities for a larger cooperation between countries in transition. Borders in Europe often changed, especially after the world wars and after the fall of communism. Often people had to live in multi-national countries as for instance the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although then the conflicts have been present between the different nations, they shared quite a lot of similar problems and there is also a part of the history that they have in common. On the other hand there are national minorities that can be an interesting subject not only because they are sometimes the cause of conflicts but they can also be a bridge of understanding between the neighbouring countries. There are also problems that are common in all the countries that are becoming part of a new Europe.

In the end there are enough points of interest that can serve as a beginning for cooperation. But the most important thing is that they interest good filmmakers.

Another problem that is especially big and important in Croatia is how to bring your own public to the cinema. The public of Croatian movies is mostly interested in comedies and movies that have a lot humour. Even most of the other movies that sell only a few thousand tickets in the cinema, are most viewed programs on television and often have an audience bigger then one million. Although this shows that the audience in the cinema and the audience in front of a tv-set differs, maybe it suggests that the interest could increase for those films in the cinema. The cooperation between the different countries and their cinemas should be enlarged also with an exchange of experience on how to interest viewers to go and see domestic movies in cinema.

Thomas Kurelec
© FIPRESCI 2004

Lecture given at the Szolnok Conference Trans-Europa Express, Septemer 17-19, 2004.

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