Optimists, The
2006, 98min.
Prod./Dir.: Goran Paskaljevic, Script: Goran Paskaljevic, Vladimir Paskaljevic, Dir. of Phot.: Milan Spasic, Compos.: Aleksandar Simic, Zoran Simjanovic, Prod. Design: Tijana Maric, Sound: Velibor Hajdukovic, Branko Neskov, Edit.: Petar Putnikovic.
Cast: Lazar Ristovski, Bojana Novakovic, Petar Bozovic, Tihomir Arsic, Nebojsa Glogovac, Nebojsa Milovanovic, Slavko Stimac, Dragan Jovanovic, Mira Banjac, Viktor Savic.
Five tales in which people have trouble distinguishing truth from illusions. Each segment reflects the motto of Voltaire's Candide: "Optimism is insisting everything is good, when everything is bad." First, a hypnotist arrives in a small village that has been leveled by floods. The mesmerist offers his services to the community, but the residents are suspicious of his motives. Next, a woman is sexually assaulted by the man who owns the firm where she works. Her father is also employed by the same man, but when he seeks revenge, he realizes how powerless he is in this situation. In episode three, a young man loses the money earmarked for his father's funeral in a gambling spree. Desperate to win it back, he turns to an elderly woman who has been enjoying remarkable luck at the slot machines. Part four concerns a doctor who is called to examine the son of a man who operates a slaughterhouse. The boy has developed a dangerous enthusiasm for bloodshed, but the doctor doesn't realize the full ramifications of the boy's attitude until he escapes his family's home. And finally, a confidence man promising new health to a group of ailing and elderly people leaves them stranded in the middle of nowhere en route to taking the cure.
Awards
FIPRESCI Prize, Young Jury Award - Special Mention (Geneva Cinéma Tout Ecran, 2006), Golden Spike, Youth Jury Award (Valladolid IFF, 2006), Audience Award (Festróia - Tróia IFF, 2007).
Production Company
Nova Film
| Paskaljevic, Goran Goran Paskaljevic (born 22.04.1947, Belgrade, Serbia)
His father had founded the Belgrade Cinematheque, so the young film enthusiast was educated by the films he saw from film masters from Europe, the US and Asia. When he reached the age of 20, he studied cinema at FAMU (Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts), the celebrated film academy in Prague, during the brief, heady period “summer of liberalization”. He returned to his native Yugoslavia in 1973, following the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, to begin a celebrated career by making short films and documentaries for television. His debut feature, Beach Guard In Winter (1976), won him a Special Jury Prize at the Berlin IFF and international acclaim as a new talent on the Eastern European film scene. His films of the next decade were narrative stories driven by restless, all-too-human characters, who attempt to ward off bad luck and the vagaries of fate. His work has been praised by international critics for its ability to find the extraordinary in the reality of everyday life. In 1992, his film Tango Argentino, was an international hit, winning Audience Award prizes at a number of major film festivals. In 1998, his film The Power Keg, also known as Cabaret Balkan, was a definitive work about the mix of melancholy and hopefulness of the new European order following the collapse of the Russian Iron Curtain. It won several festival awards and was one of his few films to receive theatrical distribution in the US. Although the politics in his films, and his opposition to Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic, were always hidden between the lines, the director felt that his life and the livelihood of his family were in danger, which prompted him to settle in Paris in 1994. As a filmmaker in exile, Paskaljevic made How Harry Became A Tree (2001) in Ireland, a dark fable based on a Japanese short story, starring Cillian Murphy and Colm Meaney (who won an “Irish Oscar” for his performance). His two most recent features deal with the aftermath of the military conflict in the region: Midwinter’s Night Dream (2004) tells the tale of a Serbian soldier who returns to his apartment after incarceration for desertion, only to find it occupied by a woman and her daughter. The film won several awards at the San Sebastian IFF. His latest effort The Optimists (2006), a five-episode dark comedy inspired by life in post-Milosevic Serbia, won top awards at some of Europe’s prestigious festivals.
Filmography
Pan Hrstka (1969), A Few Words About Love (Nekolik slov o lásce, 1970), Children (Deca, 1973), Burden (Teret, 1974), Kapetan Janko (1974), Iz pobede u pobedu (1975), Beach Guard in Winter (Cuvar plaze u zimskom periodu, 1976), The Dog Who Loved Trains (Pas koji je voleo vozove, 1977), The Days on Earth Are Flowing (Zemaljski dani teku, 1979), 'Sipad' (1979), Special Treatment (Poseban tretman, 1980), Twilight Time (1982), The Elusive Summer of '68 (Varljivo leto '68, 1984), Guardian Angel (Andjeo cuvar, 1987), Vreme cuda (1989), Tango argentino (1992), Someone Else's America (Tudja Amerika, 1995), The Powder Keg (Bure baruta, 1998), How Harry Became a Tree (2001), Midwinter Night's Dream (San zimske noci, 2004), The Optimists (Optimisti, 2006).
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