VLADIMIR TAGIĆ

(Serbia)

YUGO FLORIDA

Producer: Marija Stojanovic (Sense Production, SERBIA)

Co-Producer: Adriatic Western (MONTENEGRO)

Funding: Film Center Serbia Production Support, Film Center of Montenegro Production Support

BIOGRAPHY

Vladimir was born in 1986 in Belgrade, Serbia. He received a Masters Degree at Faculty of Drama Arts. His short film EMERGENCY EXIT premiered at the prestigious Clermont Ferrand Festival in France in 2015 and was shown in CANNES 2017 as part of the ACID TRIP program. The movie was awarded in Munich for the best screenplay. In 2018 Vladimir was the creator of a 39-episode drama series MORNING CHANGES EVERYTHING for the Serbian National Broadcaster RTS, for which he directed 16 episodes. In 2019 he finished working on a tv series REAL STORY for which he directed 5 episodes.

SYNOPSIS

ZORAN (30) is a chronically tired “ninja”, a worker in the reality show “Big Brother”, whose job mainly consists of wearing ninja costumes and entering Big Brother’s house, while the people inside are sleeping, to fill their refrigerator and set the scenery. A part from that, his job is to watch people, during the night, while they are asleep and keep track of all the things that are (not) happening. Zoran gets a phone call from his father, with whom he isn’t close. Father tells him he has cancer. During the process of trying to help his father and going through different stages of his illness, Zoran is faced with the closeness of death. His loneliness is building sexual frustration inside him, and the need for love and intimacy.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

Thinking about my generation, I couldn’t help but notice the presence of overall dissatisfaction, disappointment, and the feeling that we deserve much more than we have got. So does feel our main character, Zoran. That “generational” despondency completely shatters upon crucial life challenges, such as illness. Only just then we begin to really appreciate life and perceive our position in it a bit differently – we become more grateful, more aware of the world around us, less egocentric, and self-pitiful.

I see this film as vibrant and full of spirit even though it is about loneliness, illness and death. Despite of examining “serious” subjects, our film has to be teeming with life and its beauty, with a pinch of humor. In such a way the story gains profundity and three-dimensionality and we can become aware of the value of life we are losing, the life which flows and slowly disappears.

In terms of genre, the film is an existentialist drama mixed with comic elements and absurdity. It will be based on constant conflict between burden and darkness and cheerfulness and humor. These two principles colliding all the time bring liveliness and complexity which are of most importance for our film.