CL: It seems to me that, in the thematic choices and comic overtones (less in the aesthetics displayed), there is an echo of Živko Nikolić. Was this great Montenegrin author an inspiration?

Ivan Marinović: Whoever deals with Montenegrin homeland will eventually be compared with Živko. I don't mind it, actually. Živko Nikolić is such a great author that I can only see it as a compliment. I adored his films while growing up, and it is certain that I learned a lot while watching "Ljepota poroka", "Iskušavanje Đavola" or his short films.

CL: Great attention is given to the visual aspect, especially to mise-en-scène, with its sophisticated and carefully constructed design -  both for exteriors and interiors. To what extent did studying at the Prague FAMU shape your creative and directorial choices?

Ivan Marinović: FAMU gave me film literacy, and the main focus was on that. To learn the language and its functionality, while poetics and estetics come from within. No one can teach you the latter. The point is to learn to distinguish between style and decoration.

I didn't really search for a style that has to be forced onto the story, I wanted the style that would functionally serve the scenes. And I wanted the shots, with all their inherent qualities, to bring an additional layer of meaning. If you don't have that layer, you don't have a film.  

CL: How did you choose your DoP and other team members?

Ivan Marinović: My policy was that my collaborators must be decent human beigns first, and their talent comes second. Only with good people, who are willing to give you more than just profesionalism, can you make a low budget film.

Đorđe Arambašić is a fantastic talent, and one of the few DoP's without an ambition to actually direct a film himself. He is completely devoted to his own approach to the filmmaking process, and he is quick and efficient enough so that he doesn't waste the director’s time intended for work with actors. He is always completely devoted to the project. Also, he is not constrained by his own comfort zone when it comes to his aesthetics, he does not adapt the film to himself, but he adapts himself to the film. That is why his portfolio is very rich and multifarious.

CL: Are there crtically decisive moments during a film shoot?

Ivan Marinović: There are moments in which you have everything in your control, and moments in which you have to find a way how to regain such control despite a bunch of unforseen problems and circumstances. There are always scenes that you can cut out or change without necessarily destroying the film, but every film has its pivotal moments which are crucial to the development of the character or which build a certain type of emotion. There you can't compromise, and having absolute control over those scenes is extremely important. I had a few of those moments, but I believe I managed to find my way around them.

CL: There are always some scenes/sequences more difficult to shoot, if only due to uneasy external conditions. Was it hard to film three, in my opinion, key sequences: the binge drinking sequence with the priest, the grandmother’s going out from the house alone into the woods at moonlight, and the funeral with a corpseless coffin, the latter being the climaxing slapstick moment?

Ivan Marinović: Those are precisely the crucial and challenging moments. Nikola had the most demanding acting work in the mill scene. Night scenes were difficult since sometimes we even had to change location 4 times, which is very difficult for the entire crew, and it is something you always try to avoid.

The funeral was complicated, especially the shot of the coffin sliding infinitely downhill. We knew that it was our “money shot”, but we had a problem with the robot that was driving the coffin. When we were testing it, everything functioned, but it turned out that in the few hours when we could test it there was no electricity on the peninsula. When we were shooting the electricity came back, so the power plant near by suddenly started to interfere with our controls of the coffin. It made the whole thing very difficult and clumsy. But this complicated situation made room for improvisation with the actors  and that’s when I decided to send Goran Slavić to run all the way down, to chase the coffin, which brought the shot to its best possible version. On top of all that, old Jože from the orchestra, who didn't care much about the shoot, suddenly realised it was 5pm – the time to take his pills, so he slowly walked out of the shot, which was pure magic. It made the shot so lively and real that only then did I ealize that we had it all – much more than initially planed.

CL: After the Sarajevo Film Festival premiere, where I could witness the audience ovations, you’ve had some national cinema premieres. Some say that the local audience is the harshest critic. What did you think of your film’s reception at home? Did they miss anything that might have been important for you?

Ivan Marinović: I don't enjoy premieres, they are stressfull, even when we get the loving treatment like we did in Sarajevo. The one in Herceg Novi was tense, everyone came with their own expectations, and one could feel the tension in the air. But it turned out perfectly, no worse that the Sarajevo premiere. But as there was no detachment from the film topic, it made the crowd much more emotional. People were going back to see the film more than once. For the Herceg Novi standards, we had the box office of “Titanic”.

CL: Were there tears?

Ivan Marinović: Yes, there were, even from people that I never saw cry in my life. There was a catharsis, some kind of deep self-discovery moment the audience faced. I didn’t plan any of this, I wouldn't know how to calculate with such things. It is still a mistery to me, but I did live with the story so intensely, and without my own devotion I doubt that the film could get such reactions in the end.

CL: So, the local audience understood the film as you intended?

Ivan Marinović: To be honest, I didn't think too much about the local audiences. I tried to go towards more universal things, so that the story can be clear and approachable on other continents too. But from this perspective today, I think the local audience understood everything in the right way.

CL: Because of a very powerful visual narrative, some dialogues might have been less intense, concretely I am alluding to the visually intense funeral sequence. Did you feel, at moments, as someone coming from “outside”, the need to provide additional explanations, in case the intended connotation might be lost?

Ivan Marinović: There were a few overwritten scenes that we cut down in editing. Film is a living process for me, and dialogue scenes are tricky. In the end, I decided to leave some scenes on the floor of the editing room, and I purposefully didn't want to explain everything. For example, I knew that the red star and the cross on an obituary are symbols that some international audiences won't grasp so easily, but there is a line of dialogue of Leon which hints at the explanation. In the same way, I didn't want to verbalise the context of the band at the funeral, but Nikola asks Diklić "who brought the band?", and the intelligent audience will understand that the subtext is that the band shouldn't be there at all. The question why the coffin is empty is explained through Diklić's line "they packed her up now", while  the space remains open to various interpretations and readings. Those are the nuances which are avoiding too much explanation that would stall the story. The point is - I try to treat the audiences with respect, I regard them as intelligent people for whom I don’t need to simplify things too much.  

CL: What is the international audiences feedback so far and what are your expectations from them?