Known to a wider audience for the successful TV series Morning Changes Everything, of which he is one of the creators, directors and screenwriters, Serbian filmmaker Vladimir Tagić has now come up with a personal story called Yugo Florida, written by Milan Ramšak Marković, and co-written and directed by Tagić himself. It is inspired by the last seven months before the death of Tagić's father.

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Tagić’s alter-ego Zoran, performed by Andrija Kuzmanović, is a chronically fatigued night-shift worker on a reality-TV programme, where he closely follows sleeping participants on around 50 monitors. Zoran’s awkward and almost pointless life, also including a pothead roommate and an unavailable ex-girlfriend, is turned upside-down when his estranged and intolerable father is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Eventually, Zoran finds himself committed to helping him through his final weeks.

The cast also includes Serbian actor Nikola Pejaković as the father, Croatian actress Snježana Sinovčić Šiškov, known for her performances in Safe Place [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Juraj Lerotić
scheda film] (2022) and How I Learned to Fly (2022), and Montenegrin actor Goran Slavić, who recently appeared in Forever Hold Your Peace [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Ivan Marinović
scheda film] (2023).

“The film’s themes are loneliness and the need for closeness,” Tagić elaborates. “What characterises my generation is a general feeling of dissatisfaction and disappointment – a feeling that we deserve more from life. This generational ‘despondency’ completely breaks down in the face of life's great challenges, such as disease. Only then do we begin to truly appreciate life and view our position in it a little differently, with a little more gratitude and more awareness of the world around us. We become less self-centred and have less self-pity.”

Producer Marija Stojanović, from Serbia’s Sense Production, defines Yugo Florida as an arthouse drama that is aimed first and foremost at an audience of arthouse-film lovers. “However, judging by the example of Tagić's work so far, his treatment may be of interest to a wider audience as well,” adds Stojanović.

A co-production between Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Croatia, Yugo Florida is also being backed by Bulgaria’s Contrast Films, with Katya Trichkova as head of production; Croatia’s Eclectica; and Montenegro’s Adriatic Western. Besides funding bodies from the aforementioned territories, the film was also financed by Creative Europe – MEDIA and Eurimages. It has a total budget of approximately €600,000.

Editing is currently happening in Serbia, colour grading and mastering will be executed in Croatia, while the sound post-production will be completed in Bulgaria. The post-production period is scheduled to wrap in May 2024, while the release is planned for the end of the year or the beginning of 2025.