Following El Shatt - A Blueprint for Utopia [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], Tibor Keser – based in Croatia with his company, KOMPOT – is ready to bring more creative documentaries to the screen. But whatever he is currently working on, including Pour the Water as I Leave and Kolo, he never forgets about the local audience. He is now preparing for European Film Promotion’s Producers on the Move initiative at Cannes.

Cineuropa: Is there something specific you are looking for these days? In new projects but also in new collaborators?
Tibor Keser: The qualities I am looking for in my colleagues? They shouldn’t be afraid to fight for a film. It’s a tough industry, so I gravitate towards people who are flexible in the way they approach cinema. For them, it’s not just a monetary exchange; it’s a dialogue. I like people who try new things and who try their best, who go one step further. I am looking for energy, integrity and intelligence. For me, it’s not a job; it’s a calling.

As for the projects, that’s a tough question because my entire “brand” and my entire career were always about following people’s energy. I really mean it, and I really believe it. I love political subjects, but there is this je ne sais quoi quality that’s needed for a film to be good. I have gone through that process quite a few times, and most of the time, movie magic is just that: magic. Otherwise, the same people would be winning at Cannes every year.

Last year, I produced the historical documentary El Shatt - A Blueprint for Utopia, based on photographic archives from World War II. It was about a refugee camp in Egypt, where Croatians fled after the capitulation of Italy. It’s arty, black and white, and didn’t go to that many festivals, but it became the most-viewed doc of the year in Croatia and even made it into the local top ten. I don’t know how to measure success, so every time, I just try to do something new.

It's wonderful to hear about El Shatt’s box-office success. With European arthouse cinema, people often assume it just won’t make any money, and they are fine with it.
In Europe, we make so many films. Not all of them get wide distribution, and we allow festivals to provide the “stamp of quality”. They decide if the film was even worth making. This festival circuit is a valid market, but we should value domestic audiences even more. They are already funding most of the films we are making anyway. You could argue that in the EU, we should think more “European”, but there are still cultural barriers. Many films don’t travel well, so maybe we should pay more attention to our own society and the things that make it special, which we often tend to overlook? We owe so much to our local audience – providing festivals with something that ticks all the boxes is just not enough. We should strive to satisfy both sides.

Now, I am at Producers on the Move with three completely different projects: an animated documentary [Pour the Water as I Leave] about the fallout of the war in Bosnia by Daniela Repas; another doc, Kolo by debuting director Bojan Mrđenović; and Spacehead, a detective story for a younger audience. I am a father of two, and they ask me what I do, so this one will hopefully help them understand. Also, we are preparing to finally show a film I have been working on for seven years, Igor Bezinović’s Fiume o morte!, which is also the biggest film I have ever done [see the news and listen to the podcast]. It’s a co-production between Slovenia, Italy and Croatia, focusing on Italian poet D’Annunzio – he led this political stunt where he “captured” the city of Rijeka and proclaimed a micro-state for a year and a half. Now, we have been filming with its residents, re-enacting it.

All of these new documentaries you are developing – do you think it’s a good time for them? Once they are in main competition sections, they keep on scooping awards.
I think it’s the most progressive thing happening in cinema right now. All of these barriers are finally starting to break down. People are recognising there are many ways to tell a story, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a fictional take on it or not. Or maybe it’s something in between? I co-produced a film by Mila Turajlic, Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudovic Reels [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Mila Turajlic
scheda film], and it won the Golden Arena at the Pula Film Festival. That was the first year when they added documentaries to the main competition. I think that films are either good or not, and all of these distinctions are starting to blur. Audiences will be attracted by something that’s close to them: it can be either a topic or a theme, and the time for restrictions is finally over.