Montenegrin writer-director Dušan Kasalica, best known for the short A Matter of Will, which picked up the Heart of Sarajevo in 2015, has started filming his highly anticipated feature-length debut, The Elegy of Laurel [+lire aussi :
critique
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interview : Dušan Kasalica
fiche film], in Herceg Novi and Igalo, on the Montenegrin coast, before the crew moves to a different location on the Durmitor mountain.

The movie features Croatian star Frano Lasić in the role of Filip, a sophisticated university professor who goes to a spa hotel on the coast with his wife. After a couple of days spent lounging in the comfy, monotonous ambiance of the hotel, their seemingly perfect marriage is over. Filip is left by his wife, and he returns to the city. A series of situations seems to indicate that his life is collapsing, but Filip, a refined man bristling with confidence, faces up to each new circumstance in his life with surprising ease. While fleeing from his problems, he ends up in a small mountain village deep in the forest, stepping foot in a fantasy world that will break him down and change him, but also give him a chance for a new beginning.

“The Elegy of Laurel deals with the ego of a man who is part of the comfortable Yugoslav middle class that first built a system, and then silently watched its destruction,” says Kasalica. “Without any clear ideological, cultural or political critique of its reality, this generation wishes to keep on living and enjoying its romantic self-sufficiency, represented in this story by the character of Filip.”

The film also stars Savina Geršak, Nikolina Bogdanović, Momo Pićurić, Olivera Vuković, Draginja Voganjac, Lidija Kordić, Lidija Petrone and Zoran Trojanović. The movie is being shot by DoP Igor Djordjević (Wind [+lire aussi :
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fiche film]), and Jelena Maksimović (The Load [+lire aussi :
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interview : Ognjen Glavonić
fiche film]) will edit it. Both crew members also worked on A Matter of Will. Jelena Angelovski, of Meander Film, is producing.

The Elegy of Laurel was developed through the Berlinale Script Station and Sarajevo's CineLink, and is being supported by the Film Centre of Montenegro.