27/11/2024 - The director’s sophomore feature is a melancholic horror-drama flick about a man searching for his relative in a devastated, post-industrial landscape

The shoot is under way for Momir Milošević’s sophomore feature, Soap. It is taking place at various locations in the south of Serbia, and the principal photography stage of the production should be completed some time in December. The plot follows a troubled official who wanders from one factory he is supposed to close to another. Along the way, he is searching for his missing relative with the help of a 17-year-old girl fixated on soap.

On the occasion of the start of shooting, Milošević said: “Soap is a melancholic horror set in the altered reality of the near future, revolving around the fear that a mysterious factory located somewhere in the hills uses human tissue to make soap. It is an atmospheric and unsettling story about loneliness and the loss of identity, based on realism and human drama with subtly included elements of horror cinema that serve as a metaphor for the responsibility for human life.”

Stating that his primary influence was The Twilight Zone TV series, the filmmaker added: “When I came up with the idea for the film, I started with the question of how to introduce horror into a portrait of everyday life, taking my cue from the terrifying situations happening in real life by using fiction in such a way that it is perfectly integrated and compelling within the framework of cinéma vérité aesthetics.”

Previously, Milošević directed the urban, New Belgrade-set body horror Open Wound in 2016. In the meantime, he has also helmed a few episodes of the TV series Block 27 and served as a casting director on two more series, The Clan and Impure Blood.

Along with writing the script and directing, Milošević also serves as Soap’s producer through his company, Kanal. The cast is led by Nikola Šurbanović (glimpsed in Peter Atencio’s The Machine) and Miona Ilov (seen in Dušan Milić’s Darkling [+see also:
film review
interview: Dušan Milić
film profile]), while Aleksej Bjelogrlić, Milica Krstić and Marija Đelić, among others, play supporting roles. Pavle Pavlović handles the cinematography, Ana Žugić serves as the editor, and Dane Vlaisavljević is doing the sound design. Production design is handled by Livija Mikić and the costumes by Teodora Bjeković. Soap received financial support from Film Center Serbia last year.