Rudarska opera

Ever since the outset of the Yugoslav Wars the the Serbian industrial town of Bor, home to one of the largest copper mines in Europe, has been the scene of economic decline. Life in the town, home to 54,000 inhabitants, is characterised by job losses and emigration. The gigantic mine, which is currently up for sale, has become a symbol of the region’s economic stagnation and employed as the central theme of two internationally successful films: Nikola Ležaić’s TILVA ROŠ (2009, Cottbus 2010) and Oleg Novković’s BELI, BELI SVET (2010, main award Cottbus 2010).

This documentary film from 2006 was inspired by a project from the previous year, which was carried out by the arts community and a cast of amatuer actors from Bor. Around the same time the director travelled together with his co-scriptwriter Milena Marković to Bor in order to document the planned performance of an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s “The Threepenny Opera”. Beyond the rehearsals for the play the documentary portrays the attitude to life of a town whose inhabitants have had to learn to live with social uncertainty and to defy desperation. In the course of long nights spent singing, discussing, drinking and smoking the doomsday scenario on the streets vanishes behind endless discussions on art, culture, the state and politics. Due to the director’s interest in the soul, as opposed to the symbolism, of the town, the film shows this marginalised industrial province in a refreshingly different light to that typical of clichéd news reports.