07/02/2017 - Serbian filmmaker Bojan Vuletić's second feature is a tragi-comedy starring Mirjana Karanović

Serbian writer-director Bojan Vuletić's second feature, Requiem for Mrs. J. [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bojan Vuletić
film profile], will world-premiere in the Berlinale's Panorama Special section. 

The film is a bittersweet tragi-comedy about the titular middle-aged woman, played by Mirjana Karanović, who has been suffering from depression since her husband died a year ago. She plans to commit suicide, and is eager to first finish up all of her private and administrative tasks. But she gets entangled in red tape when she tries to get a certificate attesting her last 20 years of employment in a now-bankrupt state company.

Vuletic's first feature film, Practical Guide to Belgrade with Singing and Crying [+see also:
trailer
film profile], premiered in Karlovy Vary's East of the West section in 2011, and he previously co-penned the script for Stefan Arsenijević's Love and Other Crimes [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which premiered in the Berlinale Panorama in 2008.

Besides Karanović, the film stars her partner from her directorial debut, A Good Wife [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Boris Isaković, cult actor Srdjan Žika Todorović, living legend Mira Banjac, and newcomers Jovana Gavrilović and Vučić Perović. The crew includes cinematographer Jelena Stanković, who collaborated with Vuletic on Practical Guide to Belgrade with Singing and Crying, and Macedonian editor Vladimir Pavlovski (Three Days in September [+see also:
trailer
film profile]). 

Requiem for Mrs. J. is a co-production by Serbia's SEE Film Pro, Bulgaria's Geopoly Film, Macedonia's Skopje Film Studio, Russia's Non-Stop Production and France's Surprise Alley. In addition to financing from the national film funds of Serbia, Bulgaria and Macedonia, the Culture Secretariat of the Serbian province of Vojvodina and participation from national broadcaster RTS, last summer the project won the Karlovy Vary Works in Progress Award, worth €100,000 in post-production services from Czech companies UPP and Soundsquare, plus a cash award of €10,000 from Barrandov Studio. Belgrade-based Soul Food has the international rights.