Interview: Ademir Kenovic, Director

by Dubravko Brigic (AIM)

Ademir Kenovic is a director from Sarajevo. His first feature film "This little Bit of Soul" opened the 1991 "Quinzaine des Realisiteurs" in Cannes. The poet Abdulah Sidran wrote the script for his second movie "Kuduz". Sidran is famous as the script writer of Emir Kusturica's films "Do You Remember Dolly Bell" and "Father On A Business Trip" which earned three Felix nominations for Best Film, Best Female Role, and Best Music. "Kuduz" won a special award given by the jury for "the creative spirit in the new films coming from Sarajevo.

Kenovic is finishing the script of a new film with Sidran and Pjer Zalica. The shooting will start these days, as soon as the airport is opened, and the necessary technology can be imported. Mustafa Nadarevic from Zagreb, Branko Djuric a citizen of Sarajevo now living in Ljubljana, Josip Pejakovic of Sarajevo, and Zaim Muzaferija and Bozo Bunjevac from provincial Bosnia will act in the film. The film has the metaphorical title of "A Perfect Circle".

I think that the title reflects some elements from the movie, and represents a metaphor for some things in the film. It also sounds attractive, different. In a way it's a pleonasm, because a circle is always perfect. We, citizens of Sarajevo, have been living in a closed area for the past three years. The solution to our situation is so complicated and in one circle. It's as if we can never reach some points.

VREME: What, in fact, is the film about?

KENOVIC: This is a film about a man who in Sarajevo's war nightmare loses his family and whose life becomes intertwined with the lives of two boys who have also lost their families and are trying to reach their relatives abroad. The story is simple, and I'd say that the emotions are the most important thing... Sidran, the script writer, plays one of the main roles.

VREME: You have probably met colleagues from Belgrade at world film festivals. Do they have a realistic picture of the reality of Sarajevo?

KENOVIC: In Cannes I spent a lot of time with Rajko Grlic and Didi Karanovic. One comes from Zagreb and the other from Belgrade. Both teach in America, both are wonderful people and share our way of thinking: sick fascists are destroying the people here. Those who have not noticed this are either indifferent or they support the crimes and they'll bear the consequences. Those who support the crimes thought up in Belgrade will have to ask themselves why they didn't do what all normal people would expect them to have done.

VREME: There is talk that Emir Kusturica and Goran Bregovic have taken Yugoslav passports, of this latest Yugoslavia, but they asked to be announced as Bosnians at a festival in Florence recently. Do you have any news of them? What is the truth?

KENOVIC: No, and I'm not interested. All will answer to their own conscience.