29/01/2025 - The veteran Golden Bear winner tells the story of an elderly jazz pianist who returns home to Serbia after six decades living in Germany

Veteran Serbian maverick filmmaker Želimir Žilnik's 30th feature-length film, Eighty Plus [+see also:
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Eighty Plus tells the story of elderly jazz pianist Stevan, who returns home to Serbia after six decades living in Germany. Concluding a lengthy legal process, the government confirms that – via post-socialist restitution – he can inherit the neglected mansion previously bequeathed to him by his parents. A series of encounters and reunions then opens an unexpected new chapter in Stevan’s life.

The screenplay was co-written by Žilnik and Tanja Šljivar, whose credits include Celts [+see also:
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interview: Milica Tomovic
film profile] by Milica Tomović (Berlinale Panorama, 2021), and Ivan Tomović and Wu Lingfeng's From Tomorrow on, I Will [+see also:
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film profile] (Berlinale Forum, 2019). The hero of Eighty Plus is played by professional jazz musician Milan Kovačević.

“Kovačević already played the lead role in Strahinja Mlađenović's short film Nonsense! in 2022. This is where we saw him and invited him to an audition,” recalls producer Sarita Matijević Žilnik. The director says: “If Eighty Plus turns out to be a humorously incisive social portrait of family politics, identity and belonging, I am fine with that, too. As our main hero, Stevan, navigates the practical and emotional demands of his present situation while fondly recalling his past life in pre-war Yugoslavia, he reconnects with his multi-generational family, rekindles old friendships, and even sparks a new romantic interest with a night-club singer he once shared a stage with.

“Blending documentary realism and narrative fiction with non-professional actors, the film’s hybrid aesthetic aims to create a vision of elderly life in the post-socialist, transnational and hyper-transactional world we live in.”

Filmed by Jovan Milinov and edited by Vuk Vukmirović, Eighty Plus is a co-production between Serbia's Playground Produkcija and Žilnik Produkcija, and Slovenia's Tramal Films and Staragara. The international sales are handled by US-based EXPOBLVD.