<nettime> B92 press release: SERBIA IN THE YEAR ZERO

["geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl>]

From: <mediawatch@lists.opennet.org>
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 5:58 AM
Subject: B92 press release: SERBIA IN THE YEAR ZERO

B92 press release

SERBIA IN THE YEAR ZERO

The new film by Goran Markovic - "Serbia in the Year Zero" - will be shown
at this year's Venice Festival as part of the "New Territories" festival
program.

The film is co-produced by Paris-based "Les Films du Lendemain" and
Belgrade's B92. Commenting in the festival programme, director Goran
Markovic says:

"The most important questions left over from the Milosevic era are:
Why did what happened to us happen?
Where has the demon come from and how did he appear in our lives?
Is one man to blame or are we all responsible?

"Serbia In the Year Zero" does not attempt to answer those questions. It is
content with becoming a kind of inventory of the horrors unfolding inside
the heads of my compatriots, inside the heads of people close to me, and,
finally, inside my own head. In addition, this film-collage attempts to
table the cases of dishonour I witnessed or heard about, without striving to
draw any conclusions from them. This chronicle of the disease that infected
us all, which some people did not survive, does not explain anything. It
does however serve one useful mission: it saves from oblivion the things we
would rather sweep under the carpet."

Veran Matic, editor-in-chief of co-producer B92, says of the film:
"Goran Markovic's "Serbia in the Year Zero" is the first result of a
thorough confrontation with one's own life under Slobodan Milosevic. This is
the work of a director who has constantly resisted the criminal regime while
feeling guilty for the wrongs committed, who has publicly called for those
guilty to be held responsible whilst feeling responsible himself, who has
asked for forgiveness for something he personally did not commit but in fact
simultaneously resisted.

The dictator has gone and we are now alone. Our identity that was built on
the resistance to him has also disappeared. Now we have only the painful
process whereby individuals and society as a whole must confront the crimes.
For the first time the results of the war are being tallied. Goran Markovic
begins with himself, his family and his surroundings. After a retrospective
of his films at various festivals, and a retrospective book, the director
creates a retrospective of the last fifteen years of his life."

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