Section: Feature Film Competition

HAMLET

HAMLET

Aleksandar Rajković
Serbia, 2007, 105 Min
ADT Group

Even after 400 years, Shakespeare’s famous drama seems as fresh as ever in this adaptation in which Hamlet is a young Romany. The castles of the original are now makeshift huts on a vast refuse dump not far from Belgrade. Two Roma clans – one Orthodox, the other Muslim – are fighting over the rights to divide up the garbage. It is a hard winter there, on the fringes of modern Serbia, and the inhabitants resemble their environment: mean, intolerant, fraudulent. When his brother dies, Jova marries the dead man’s widow Jelena and takes control of the scrap distribution. But the vengeful ghost of the deceased brother is haunting the dump. Hamlet, the dead man’s son, discovers that his uncle Jova was responsible for the accident, and trains his hate-filled sights on the new boss. Nobody survives the tragedy that ensues. The film’s slow rhythm and neo-realistically atmospheric images convey an authentically hard-edged picture of shantytown Roma life on the sidelines of Serbian society. This authenticity is underscored by the fact that all characters are played by lay actors whose background mostly differs little from that shown in the film. Many of the film crew came from a similar environment. Shot from within the Roma community, therefore, it is a film in which the protagonists do not provide mere folkloric decoration but act in their own world and language.

Filmformat
35mm | Farbe / colour
Drehbuch
Aleksandar Rajković, Ana Maria Jermoluk, Dušica Žegarac
Kamera
Milad Tauk
Schnitt
Aleksandar Rajković
Ausstattung
Silvia Strozzi
Musik
Dragan Kresić
Darsteller
Petar Božović, Igor Đorđević, Miodrag Fišeković, Mirjana Šišić, Srđan Bošnjaković, Zoran Kostić, Jovan Fetovski, Miroslav Simić, Suzana Petrović, Predrag Novak, Zdravo Ranković, Dragoljub Topalović
Produzent
Dragan Ašanin
Produktion
ADT Group
Co-Produktion
BF film and video production, B92
Kontakt
ADT Group
Knez Mihajlova 10
11000 Beograd
Serbia
Tel.: +381.11.3282808
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office@adtrade.co.yu
www.adtrade.co.yu
Aleksandar Rajković

Aleksandar Rajković - born 1960 in Belgrade. Studied directing at the State Russian Film School in Moscow. His diploma film NA IMANJU was the Russian candidate for the Student Oscar. He then made a number of documentaries in various formats.

Movies
VEČITO DRUGI (1989, short, doc-fiction)
NOĆ PUNOG MESECA (1990, short)
NA IMANJU (1992)
NOŽ U VODI (1998, doc-fiction)
NACIONALNA GEOGRAFIJA (2001-2002, doc, episodes)
KAO MEHUR OD SAPUNICE (2003-2004, doc, episodes)