Srđan Dragojević

Srđan Dragojević (, , born 1 January 1963) is a Serbian film director and screenwriter, who emerged in the 1990s as a significant figure in Serbian cinema.

From 2010 until 2017, he was affiliated with the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS). In late August 2013 he became an SPS MP in the Serbian National Assembly.

Early life and career

Born to a journalist father Anđelko Dragojević (1934-2017) hailing from Srbica and a French translator mother Ljiljana, Dragojević once described himself as a "child of middle-level communist nomenklatura in Serbia". His father worked as a staff writer at Belgrade-based daily newspapers Borba and Večernje novosti, including a managerial stint at OOUR Novosti media company. In his early youth, Dragojević played bass guitar in the punk/new wave band TV Moroni. He also dabbled in journalism, writing for ' newspaper and Start magazine.

He was next hired along with to co-write a star vehicle for turbo-folk star Dragana Mirković that eventually became 1994's widely panned, Vladimir Živković-directed, romantic musical comedy '. Produced by influential Serbian show business agent-manager whose clients included local top-selling young starlets of the folk music genre, the high-budget film was envisioned as twenty-five-year-old Dragana Mirković's cinematic platform meant to showcase her in a different light musically (more dance-pop less commercial folk) and thus increase her nationwide fame, much like Đokić had managed to do for his other famous client Lepa Brena several years earlier with her Hajde da se volimo film that grew into a hugely successful two-sequel revenue-generating franchise. Following the same pattern, Đokić again threw funds at prominent individuals from the local cinematography. Attracted by his money, numerous Serbian film and music industry people (including Dragojević, Branka Katić, Nebojša Bakočević, Rambo Amadeus, etc.) normally completely disassociated from and even ideologically opposed to the commercial folk music milieu flocked to do the film. Still, Slatko od snova was a box-office flop, only managing to become a camp guilty pleasure in the years since for its over-the-top excess.

The year 1994 also saw Dragojević write and direct a made-for-TV musical comedy Dva sata kvalitetnog TV programa ("Two Hours of Quality TV Programming") that aired on RTS television's third channel (3K) as part of their New Year's Eve 1995 programming. During next year, 1995, he directed a couple of episodes of the RTS series Otvorena vrata ("Open Doors").

Critical acclaim

Four years after his debut, Dragojević finally returned to directing feature films - this time completely breaking out of the youth genre to tackle the gruesome issues related to the ongoing Yugoslav Wars with a controversial drama containing elements of dark comedy, Lepa sela lepo gore, set in war-torn Bosnia. In addition to critical praise, the movie made a measurable commercial impact with more than 700,000 tickets sold domestically during its theatrical run. It also raised plenty of controversy across Europe over its ideological aspects: while many saw it as a powerful denouncement of war, others viewed it as "fascist cinema". The movie was even refused entry at the 1996 Venice Film Festival in addition to splitting the jury at the 1996 Thessaloniki International Film Festival that ultimately denied it the main prize despite being an overwhelming hit with the festival's audience. In North America, the film received more or less universal critical praise as Dragojević started getting courted by Hollywood almost immediately following the film's notable run on the festival circuit across the continent. He signed with William Morris Agency in late summer 1996 and got flown to Los Angeles where he had meetings with different studio heads. However, deeply dissatisfied with the scripts he was being offered, the director decided to come back home and do another film in Serbia. Therefore, the only tangible result of his brief flirtation with Hollywood on this occasion was the deal with Fox Lorber for the North American limited theatrical and home video distribution of Lepa sela lepo gore.

Back home on the political front, Dragojević supported the 1996-97 anti-government demonstrations by speaking at rallies and taking part in protest walks.

In 1998 Dragojević gave a bleak and critical portrayal of life in Slobodan Milošević's Serbia in Rane, which was another critical success for the young director. Loosely based on a true story, its plot follows the descent of two Belgrade youngsters from youthful exuberance into juvenile delinquency and hard criminality amid economic sanctions in FR Yugoslavia as their personal relationship transforms from close friendship to impulsively vicious rivalry. Released in May 1998 and, like most local productions, funded in large part by state institutions such as the state-run broadcaster RTS, the film elicited a stern response from the government elements that did not appreciate the director's brutal portrayal of Milošević's Serbia. Though they didn't ban the movie outright, they severely impacted its promotional cycle by refusing to run the film's ads in the state-run print and electronic media outlets. During the film's promotion on the festival circuit in North America, Dragojević expressed concern that he wouldn't be allowed to continue making films in Serbia under Milošević.

Those fears didn't turn out to be unfounded as his attempts to raise funds for the film adaptation of Dušan Kovačević's 1984 theater play St. George Slays the Dragon quickly got shot down.

Hollywood years

By 1999 Dragojević had enough of Serbia as the realization set in that he wouldn't be allowed to make films the way he wants to. He thus called on his Hollywood connections in order to once again explore his options across the pond and soon opened negotiations with Miramax as he again started to get some interest from America including a January screening of Rane at the Sundance Film Festival.

In late March 1999, a week into NATO's bombing of Serbia, Dragojević boarded a bus to Budapest with his wife and their two kids and went to New York City where he had a scheduled screening of Rane organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center at the Museum of Modern Art as part of its annual 28th New Director's/New Films series. The arrival to the country that's bombing his homeland put him in an odd and uncomfortable position and he acknowledged as much in interviews. He remained in the United States, travelling across the country with Rane that had several more festival screenings (including the San Francisco International Film Festival) while simultaneously negotiating terms with Miramax.

New York City

From July 1999, with his Miramax deal announced, Dragojević would end up spending the following two years living and working in the United States, initially in New York City. He was under the so-called first-look deal that obligated him to offer everything he's interested in developing (either his own work or someone else's work the rights for which could be bought) to Miramax first and then if Miramax refuses it, he was free to shop it around elsewhere. The deal also functioned in the other direction whereby Miramax would offer him scripts, books, stories or re-make ideas they thought fit his sensibility and he'd have the right of refusal.

However, Dragojević experienced major problems persuading the studios to sign-off on his suggestions, and he also mostly didn't like the ideas being offered to him.

Soon upon arriving, Dragojević met with Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein who offered him Milčo Mančevski's script Dust. Dragojević refused, however, reasoning that it's a very personal script that can more or less only be directed by Mančevski, and also due to discovering that, as he put it in a later interview, "offering me that script in the first place was the Weinstein brothers' little 'fuck you' to Mančevski whom they were on bad terms with at that moment". The studio then offered Dragojević the Heaven, Hell, Purgatory trilogy, while they particularly wanted him to direct Hell, however, he turned it down vehemently, labeling the script "the dumbest thing I've ever read" in another interview. The script would eventually be filmed by Danis Tanović. Dragojević, in turn, was interested in filming Patrick Marber's play Closer from the moment he first arrived in the United States, but the studio kept turning him down, eventually hiring veteran director Mike Nichols who got to make the film in 2004. The studio then offered Dragojević Reindeer Games, with Bob Weinstein reportedly presenting it as "the best script we've got", but the director didn't particularly like it and refused, figuring something better would come along. In later interviews, Dragojević expressed regret over not taking the offer to direct Reindeer Games due to "realizing two and half years later [after getting Miramax's other script offers] that it really was the best script they had".

Los Angeles

By spring 2000, Dragojević, along with his wife and kids, relocated to Los Angeles, settling in Laurel Canyon. He would continue going to pitch meetings for studio projects he was interested in, essentially director auditions for films that were in the development phase.

He was, by his own admission, particularly interested in directing either Frida or View from the Top, however, in the case of the former, the movie's producer and star Salma Hayek wanted a female director so the job went to Julie Taymor while in the case of the latter, the film's producers as well as its star Gwyneth Paltrow didn't like Dragojević's ironic take on the screenplay and Bruno Barreto got the job instead. He was also in the running for The Mexican, but the job went to Gore Verbinski.

The closest he got to making a Hollywood movie was the heist-comedy —The Payback All-Star Revue—that was agreed to be a co-production between Miramax and Mel Gibson's Icon Productions. The announcement was made in November 2000 with Dragojević upbeat about the project he envisioned as a "funny and commercial film containing a unique mix of genres, including Shakespearean subplots and unpredictable structures". The plot revolved around a band of lounge musicians playing in the Riviera casino in Las Vegas who decide to rob the place where they perform. Though they manage to pull off the heist successfully, they run into troubles during the getaway. Now trapped, they agree to give themselves up on the condition that they are granted an interview with a Rolling Stone reporter to tell their story. The planned plot featured a multitude of characters with many subplots. However, in the middle of pre-production the movie got canceled in 2001 due to an impending SAG strike threat and the Warner Bros.' announcement of putting Ocean's 11 remake with an all-star cast into pre-production, which Miramax thought would jeopardize Paybacks box-office appeal. Over the following years, by now known for his frank and colourful interviews, Dragojević talked openly about the experience: Summing up his Hollywood experience, Dragojević said:

Suddenly, in summer 2004, he decided to make ', the sequel to his greatest commercial hit after reportedly writing the screenplay from scratch in only three weeks. Shot in co-production with Pink International Company and released in early 2005, Mi nismo anđeli 2 broke box office records in Serbia with 700,000 admission tickets sold despite receiving bad reviews and even accusations of plagiarizing Stan Dragoti's 1989 comedy She's Out of Control. Dragojević himself on occasion referred to the film as an "open dialogue with the 1980s American B-comedy genre". Still, some observers saw his involvement in the project as an attempt at delivering a quick commercial box-office hit that would financially enable the projects he was really interested in making. Dragojević initially shied away from putting it in those terms, but several years later admitted as much explicitly in some interviews.

Around the same time Dragojević wrote one of the script drafts for Uroš Stojanović's film Čarlston za Ognjenku that he wrote as a "screwball comedy or postmodern Frank Capra", however, Stojanović ultimately went into a different direction with the film.

Right afterward, Dragojević started working on the third installment of the Mi nismo anđeli franchise. This resulted in ' that he co-wrote with , but left directing duties to . The approach taken was along the lines of Hollywood cinema - the script was offered to seven directors each of whom had to make a pitch with Pašić chosen in the end. Still, the reviews were even worse than for the previous sequel and the movie was a failure at the box office. Summing up the Mi nismo anđeli sequels several years later in 2009, Dragojević said: Dragojević was brought by John Cusack into the project titled Brand Hauser: Stuff Happens, which the Serb was slated to direct. However, the production company Nu Image led by Avi Lerner wanted the script re-written, a job that also went to Dragojević who in turn brought in Dimitrije Vojnov thus continuing their writing collaboration. The script that the duo came up with has been described by Dragojević as "a modern-day Dr. Strangelove". Dragojević then spent three months in Bulgaria doing preparation work with his set designer and director of photography, even flying out to locations in Morocco and Kazakhstan where parts of the movie were to be shot. Then weeks before the movie was scheduled to begin shooting, Cusack chimed in from London where he had been shooting 1408, voicing his displeasure with Dragojević's and Vojnov's version of the script and demanding a return to the original version co-written by Cusack himself. That spelled the end of Dragojević's involvement on the project as he decided to leave Bulgaria the next day. The movie ended up being shot with the original script and the new title War, Inc.. The only detail from Dragojević's script re-write that made it into the movie was the billboard for the fictional Democracy Light cigarette brand, which he previously used in his movie Rane.