Comedy
White lions
2011
Pressed by the dreams of a better and more just life. Overwhelmed by the experiences of students, pupils, workers, peasants and honest intelligentsia struggling to cope with the times of transition and an unnatural evolution of society, what’s more, the Serbian way, the main protagonist Dile, whose factory has gone bankrupt, decides to take things into his own hands.
Dile gives an impassioned, revolutionary speech and invites people to a revolution.
”Serbia is tired of bad news and something has to change. We have long lived in capitalism, only people have not yet been informed about it. That is why April is the time for us to start settling accounts. We humans are endangered species just like the white lions ”
Whether this is just a dream of a revolution, or a real call to take part in it, that is something you are going to find out in the tragicomedy The White Lions.
At the end of the film, Dile sings RADNIČKI REP(Workers’ rap) which contains all the answers. Saznajte više o filmu
Director: Laza Ristovski
Screenwriter: Laza Ristovski
Director of photography: Milorad Glušica s.a.s.
Production designer: Milenko Jeremić
Music: Tomo Babović, Mate Matišić
Editor: Petar Putniković
Sound: Velibor Hajduković, Nenad Vukadinović, Davor Omerza
Costumes Designer:: Marina Medenica
Make Up: Dušica Vuksanović
Associate Producer: Ivan Maloča
Producers: Petar Ristovski, Lazar Ristovski
Cast:
Lazar Ristovski, Gordan Kičić, Hristina Popović, Vuk Kostić, Zorica Jovanović, Mira Banjac, Nikola Simić, Luka Jovanović, Aleksandar Filimonović, Milan Tomić, Monika Kiš.
Comedy/Drama
White suit
1999
All that was shown in this film really happened” – says Lazar Ristovski – “but I wanted to raise the film a foot above the ground and charge it with a taste of surreal and poetic. Why? Because the audience today is much to burdened by the reality of life (especially in Yugoslavia) and it needs an embelished image of the world relying on the romantic passion, emotions, lust, poetics, chivalry, readiness to play games and tollerance.
All the characters in the film – regardless of their social, educational or cultural background – are selfaware and allow themselves to ponder on large issues like life itself, love, survival, existence, death, the endless circle, the passage of life and the imperfect nature of Mankind. They are not afraid to show their true feelings and true colors. The lead character goes one step further: he is not even afraid of death. Saznajte više o filmu
Script and Director: Lazar Ristovski
Director of photography: Milorad Glusica
Scenery: Milenko Jeremić
Costume designer: Boris Čakširan
Sound: Nenad Vukadinović
Editor: Petar Putniković
Composer: Srdjan Jacimović
Mask designer: Radica Todorović
Executive producer: Petar Ristić
Producer: Lazar Ristovski
Cast:
Lazar Ristovski. Radmila Sogoljeva (UKR), Dragan Nikolić, Velimir-Bata Živoinović, Danilo – Bata Stojković, Renata Ulmanski. Bogdan Diklić, Danica Ristovski, Branislav Popović, Branimir Brstina, Nikola Kojo, Zoran Cvijanović, Jovan Ristovski, Slobodan-Boda Ninković, Bojana Maljević, Katarina Gojković, Sonja Kolačarić, Zdena Hurtecakova (Ceska), Milana Vranešević, Nebojša Milovanović, Andrej Sepetkovski, Nenad Stojmenović
All Oscar nominations 1999.
- Argentina, “Manuelita,” Manuel Garcia Ferre, director
- Austria, “Northern Skirts,” Barbara Albert, director
- Belgium, “Rosetta,” Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, directors
- Bhutan, “The Cup,” Khyentse Norbu, director
- Brazil, “Orfeu,” Carlos Diegues, director
- Canada, “Set Me Free,” Lea Pool, director
- China, “Lover’s Grief over the Yellow River,” Feng Xiao Ning, director
- Colombia, “Time Out,” Sergio Cabrera, director
- Croatia, “Red Dust,” Zrinko Ogresta, director
- Czech Republic, “Return of the Idiot,” Sasa Gedeon, director
- Denmark, “Mifune,” Soren Kragh-Jacobsen, director
- Finland, “The Tough Ones,” Aleksi Makela, director
- France, “East-West,” Regis Wargnier, director
- Georgia, “Here Comes the Dawn,” Zaza Urushadze, director
- Germany, “Aimee & Jaguar,” Max Farberbock, director
- Greece, “From the Edge of the City,” Constantinos Giannaris, director
- Hong Kong, “Ordinary Heroes,” Ann Hui, director
- Hungary, “The Lord’s Lantern in Budapest,” Miklos Jancso, director
- Iceland, “The Honour of the House,” Gudny Halldorsdottir, director
- India, “Earth,” Deepa Mehta, director
- Indonesia, “Sri,” Marselli Sumarno, director
- Iran, “The Colours of Paradise,” Majid Majidi, director
- Israel, “Yana’s Friend,” Arik Kaplun, director
- Italy, “Not of this World,” Giuseppe Piccioni, director
- Japan, “Railroad Man,” Yasuo Furuhata, director
- Lebanon, “Around the Pink House,” Khalil Joreige & Joana Hadjithomas, directors
- Mexico, “El Coronel no tiene quien le escriba,” Arturo Ripstein, director
- Nepal, “Caravan,” Eric Valli, director
- The Netherlands, “Scratches in the Table,” Ineke Houtman, director
- Norway, “The Prompter,” Hilde Heier, director
- Peru, “Captain Pantoja and the Special Services,” Francisco J. Lombardi, director
- The Philippines, “The Kite,” Gil M. Portes, director
- Poland, “Pan Tadeusz,” Andrzej Wajda, director
- Portugal, “The Mutants,” Teresa Villaverde, director
- Romania, “The Famous Paparazzo“, Nicolae Margineanu, director
- Russia, “Moloch,” Alexander Sokurov, director
- Slovakia, “All My Loved Ones,” Matej Minac, director
- Spain, “All About My Mother,” Pedro Almodovar, director
- Sweden, “Under the Sun,” Colin Nutley, director
- Switzerland, “Beresina, or The Last Days of Switzerland,” Daniel Schmid, director
- Tajikistan, “Luna Papa,” Bakhtiar Khudojnazarov, director
- Taiwan, “March of Happiness,” Lin Cheng-sheng, director
- Turkey, “Mrs. Salkim’s Diamonds,” Tomris Gintlioglu, director
- United Kingdom (Wales), “Solomon and Gaenor,” Paul Morrison, director
- Venezuela, “Glue Sniffer,” Elia Schneider, director
- Vietnam, “Three Seasons,” Tony Bui, director
- Yugoslavia, “The White Suit,” Lazar Ristovski, director.
Critics for "White Suit"
“THE YUGOSLAV CINEMA HAS MADE US A GIFT THIS YEAR”
The Yugoslav cinema has made us a gift this year in spite of the fact that the annual production has been less than a doyen films. After the great success of Emir Kusturica’s “White Cat Black Cat” (Silver Lion in Venice in 1998) and Goran Paskaljivic’s “Powder Keg” (Best European Film / FIPRESCI 1998) we have before us “The White Suit” by Lazar Ristovski who is producer, writer, director and lead character. Listing these names there is a sense of a kindred spirit. It is a logical evolution, after the triumph in the role of Crni in Kusturica’s “Underground” (Golden Palm / Cannes 1995) and the striking and unforgettable performance in the “Powder Keg”. As a mature actor, Ristovski belongs to the world elite of actors – not only in Belgrade where he is revered like Depardieu in Paris.
This time he plays sergeant major Savo Tiodorovic, aged 45, a bachelor that writes poetry for his own pleasure, reads classics and dreams of an acting career. Having clearly defined himself with an off-camera inner dialogue, sufficient to give us his main characteristics, the hero surfaces as a dreamer hovering above memories and wishes, troubled by the dilemma: “to stay true to the past or to turn to the future”. The opening monologue stresses: “Soldiers like myself wear camouflage uniforms to avoid being seen by the enemy, but lamentably friends cannot se us either!”. This witty paradox offers a tragicomic, bittersweet flavor to the entire movie, taking us back to the golden era of the Yugoslav film with Slobodan Šijan’s “Ko to tamo peva” as the archetype.
In this film the lead character is on a train heading to his destination: his mother’s funeral. The set is a bit shifted: the unity of place – a train pulled by a steam locomotive as if it had been deliberately brought back by the author with a time machine; the unity of time: everything happens in two days, the first being the day of the finale of the Soccer World Championships in France; unity of action: the inevitable voyage confronts our hero with numerous incidental but quintessential characters, some of which are not at all appealing to us. The monstrously struck balance – thanks to the firm structure – between contradictory elements, the challenges that introduce comical scenes almost venturing into gags, a light sense of paranoia, the fear of the invisible enemy and the irresistible need for immediate fulfillment of all desires, the thirst that can be quenched only by true feelings. Ever since Fellini we have seldom had the opportunity to see such a successful merger of surreal and real, especially in two scenes that the “great masestro” would have gladly signed: the fish tank striptease scene when the little siren swims in a shanty town bordello and the one when the lead character says “I love you” in a hundred languages thus creating the magic which synthesizes westerns movies and old fashioned romantic drama. “The White Suit” is a film in favor of peace, telling us clearly that this world of ours is a great medley and that is quite all right.
Jean Roy