A press conference was held in Belgrade’s Media Centre on the occasion of the completion of the first phase of the shooting of the film “Dara iz Jasenovca”, directed by Predrag – Gaga Antonijević, written by Natasa Drakulic.
“We have already recorded the part inside the Jasenovac camp. The film site was built near Sombor for this purpose. We shot a lot of mass scenes involving more than 600 extras, as well as team members and actors. We are now entering the second part of the story, which takes place in the Stara Gradiska camp. We expect to finish shooting by the end of the year and then do post-production. We’ll do our best for the film to have its premiere in May 2020, to mark the 75th anniversary of Jasenovac’s liberation,” said Gaga Antonijevic.
In the film, Biljana Cekic (age 11) plays the main character, a little girl called Dara. Other actors that are working on the film include Marko Janketic, Vuk Kostic, Igor Djordjevic and Zlatan Vidovic.
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The press conference was attended by Michael Berenbaum, an American Holocaust expert and the film’s consultant, Jelena Trivan, chairwoman of the board of directors of the Serbian Film Centre, Dobrivoje Tanasijevic (better known as Dan Tana) a well-known Hollywood producer and a restaurateur, and Biljana Cekic.
“The film is a public project from start to finish and has no private sponsors. It will be the first feature film about Jasenovac ever made, 75 years after it’s the camp’s liberation. This is why the Serbian government has decided to financially back it up. It important that this film is not just a local project, but has both a Hollywood and global premiere,” said Jelena Trivan.
Screenwriter Natasa Drakulic said there were many emotional moments on the set that she would never forget.
“Dara iz Jasenovca” received funding as the winner of the competition launched by the Serbian Film Centre, as well as additional government funds, a total of 2.3 million euro. The film’s total budget is estimated at about 2.9 million euro.
(Blic, 04.11.2019)
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