Vladimir Vulević’s award-winning short feature film How I Beat Glue and Bronze has recently won another festival award – in Italy, at the International Festival Segni della notte in Urbino. The film won the Signs Award there, which is awarded to films that deal with a significant topic in an original or unusual way. This festival participation was the Italian premiere of this notable Serbian-German short film. Film Center Serbia also provided support for the project of this film.
People from his closest surroundings testify to the life of a factory worker from a neglected provincial town, Mihajlo. An old neighbor, Ethem, to whom Mihajlo brings the newspaper every morning, tells an anecdote from Mihajlo’s childhood when, as a ten-year-old, he sneaked unnoticed like a ghost through the neighbor’s apartments, while people had lunch, watched TV or got ready for bed. Mihajlo’s sister, who Mihajlo has been financially helping for years, tells the story of the unfair distribution of family property after the death of her parents, Mihajlo’s alcoholism and the unusual and vain religiosity of her ten-year-old daughter, who she believes has an unusual relationship with her uncle Mihajlo. A tavern-owner in whose tavern Mihajlo and his fellow workers spend afternoons and evenings talking about Mihajlo’s father, Mihajlo’s generosity towards friends, but also rumors about Mihajlo’s deviant behavior…
In his directorial explanation of the film How I Beat Glue and Bronze, Vulevic pointed out the following: “Growing up in Priboj, surrounded by factory workers in the family and all around, I watched people change and degrade in parallel with the industry and the system.” Once a cheerful, multi-national industrial town from my early childhood, it became a bleak environment for my later youth. The consequences of a failed transition are reflected not only in the material and economic effects and in how they affect society, but also in the way they hurt and change people as persons. People of my generation found themselves surprised and helpless in that situation. Unable to leave, without the possibility to change anything, they stayed there – to inherit their parents’ jobs and life models in factories and institutions, which somehow still work. And their parents, and their parents’ parents, seem to be sustained by remembering the “golden times” and their former morals. I see the problem of economic and moral transition of time as deep and complex, and that is why in this film I try to treat it poetically and with understanding for people. ”
The screenplay was written and the film was directed by Vladimir Vulević. The director of photography is Luka Papić, who, along with Vulević and Nina Zeljković, is also the editor. Sound editing is by Vladimir Jovanović, while Jakov Munižaba was in charge of sound design and mix. Branka Majstorović and Luka Papić are responsible for image processing, and Nikola Marinković was the supervisor of image processing.
Starring: Hasan Čičić, Rasim Ćelamehmetović, Dragana Vidaković, Sasa Bjelić, Iva Bjelić, Dragana Lalović. Producers are Srđa Vučo and Vladimir Vulević. The film was produced under the auspices of Ranch Production, and was supported by HFBK Hamburg and Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein.