The Parade (film)
Encyclopedia
Parada is a 2011 Serbia
n dramedy film, written and directed by Srđan Dragojević and released on 31 October, 2011. The film, which deals with gay rights issues in Serbia, features footage of the 2010 Belgrade gay pride parade.
Despite the controversial subject, Parada reached 100,000 admission tickets in Serbian cinemas in first two weeks of distribution.
In parallel, we meet Limun, a macho Serbian veteran of the Yugoslav Wars
in his mid-to-late forties. No stranger to various criminal activity, divorced Limun now operates a bodyguard agency (whose clientele mostly consists of controversial nouveau riche
businessmen and female turbo-folk
singers) while dating Biserka (Hristina Popović), a much younger ditsy trophy girl who runs a beauty parlour.
The paths of the two couples soon cross. Radmilo performs a life-saving operation on Limun's beloved pitt-bull terrier, the victim of a drive-by shooting that served as warning to the dog's master. Through Radmilo and Limun, Biserka gets introduced to Mirko with a view of hiring him to plan out hers and Limun's wedding. The meeting of the two couples turns into a disaster that serves as the final catalyst for Mirko (who already obtained an Immigrant Visa for Canada) to leave the country forever.
In response Radmilo resorts to desperate measures to keep his partner and their relationship - He offers a deal to Limun, asking that Limun's agency provide protection for the Belgrade Pride. In return, Mirko will organize the wedding party for Limun and Biserka. Limun reluctantly accepts, but his staff refuses to protect homosexuals. Put in a tight spot, Limun thinks of hiring his enemies from the Yugoslav wars. Limun and Radmilo embark on a recruiting trip all over ex-Yugoslavia.
They manage to sign up for their mission: Niko (45) a Croat war veteran, Halil (40), a Bosnian Muslim, and Azem (45), an Albanian from Kosovo.
By fall 2009, he was ready to start shooting with the original plan being to shoot the parade scenes at the actual 20 September 2009 gay pride parade in Belgrade that ended up getting called-off due to security concerns. The shooting actually began a year later at the 2010 parade and continued in spring 2011 on locations in Croatia (Pag
, Rab
, and Obrovac
) and Macedonia (Bitola
).
According to one of its producers Biljana Prvanović, Parada cost €1.3 million to make and its funding came from European Council
's Eurimages
fund, Croatian Audio-Visual Center (HAVC), Serbian Ministry of Culture, Slovenian Ministry of Culture, Macedonian Ministry of Culture, and embassies of Germany, Holland, and France in Belgrade as well as Serbian companies Dunav Osiguranje, Prva Srpska Televizija
, and Serbia Broadband
. Dragojević complained in interviews that over hundred Serbian companies turned him down for funding due to not wanting to be associated with a gay-themed project.
The premieres in Bosnia and Croatia are scheduled for 7th and 28th November in Bijeljina
and Zagreb
, respectively, while the premieres in Slovenia and Montenegro are slated for December.
' s Dubravka Lakić stated that, by "employing shallow, occasionaly lowbrow humour delivered through effective jokes and quick yucks", Dragojević made a "thoroughly watchable, rythmically populist film that sends out a call to tolerance and a message that love always triumphs".
Blics Milan Vlajčić classified the film as a "bitterly unbridled comedy that significantly departs from what usually constitutes a situation comedy in Serbia". He went on to compare Parada' s "uncontrolled and slightly anarchic humour, filthy street lingo, and playing with stereoypes" with Mel Brooks
' Producers
and Ernst Lubitsch
's Ninotchka
, concluding that Dragojević "avoided banal moralizing while packing the film with funny stereotypes".
Danas' Pavle Simjanović compares aspects of Parada with Mike Nichols
' The Birdcage
and even Norman Jewison
's The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming
while expressing concern that Dragojević's film won't have the intended effect of "ridding the stubborn majority of its phobias towards this stigmatized minority" because the director at some point stopped making a comedy and instead turned to creating a political pamphlet. Furthermore, the paper's columnist Svetislav Basara
wrote about the movie in his regular column, praising Paradas narrative form and extolling its virtue.
Press Branko Rosić gave the film a highly favourable notice, comparing its "hilarious dialogues" to Dragojević's highly-regarded earlier works, such as Lepa sela lepo gore and Rane
.
Writer Marko Vidojković
devoted one of his columns in Kurir to the movie, describing the experience of watching Parada in one of Belgrade's multiplexes. Since at the time of his column, the movie was already a verified box office hit, approaching 200,000 admissions in Serbia alone, Vidojković praised Dragojević for "effectively organizing the biggest pride parade in the Balkans in his trademark Malcolm McLaren
esque manner".
The reviews in the Serbian online media are more mixed. Although he still gave Parada passing marks, Popboks' Đorđe Bajić has problems with the film's overall tone and its "lack of tact and subtlety", concluding that it "hits the target when it comes to delivering a loud and unconstrained pastime, but fails when it tries to be anything more than that". The review by KakavFilm.com is essentially more of the same while the review published by Filmovanje.com feels Parada could've been a great movie had Dragojević been more direct, brave, and worthwhile" concluding that "as it is, at times, you're not sure whether you're watching Tesna koža
or Šišanje". Reviewers from far-left portals E-novine and Peščanik were extremely critical of the film: the former's Vladan Petković sees Parada as "nothing more than a marketing trick" while the latter's Ajla Terzić refers to it as cinematic equivalent of kavurma, a cheap cholesterol-filled dish that's "consumed by lowbrow and low income masses who do so because it is affordable, thus disregarding its horrendous nutritional effects". Božidar Maslać of the centre-right portal NSPM concentrated on the movie's poster in his notice, feeling that that it "ripped-off the Belgrade Zoo logo" and seeing it as yet another plagiarism in Dragojević's cinematic career. On the hand, Marko Radojičić of medio.rs gave Parada a particularly favourable review, praising its casting, direction, attention to detail as well as its overall message. and City Magazine gave the film another glowing review, calling it Dragojević's best work. The film also received online notices from Slobodan Georgijev in BalkanInsight and Paul Canning on international LGBT website Care2
. Though still not widely reviewed, it got a negative notice from Nezavisne novine
s Branko Tomić who commends the movie's trailer, but reprimands Dragojević for "not being brave enough to shake up Serbia out if its slumber by showing it a passionate gay kiss". He further feels that the public set "big social expectations for the movie based upon the trailer and the director's earlier works", but thinks they will not be met and that the movie will disappear in the viewers' minds shortly after leaving the theater. Republic Srpska vice-president Emil Vlajki wrote at length about Parada in Fokus daily, seeing it as another tool of the US-sponsored "mental genocide" while labeling Dragojević "a talented director who sold his soul to the devil for fistful of dollars".
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
n dramedy film, written and directed by Srđan Dragojević and released on 31 October, 2011. The film, which deals with gay rights issues in Serbia, features footage of the 2010 Belgrade gay pride parade.
Despite the controversial subject, Parada reached 100,000 admission tickets in Serbian cinemas in first two weeks of distribution.
Plot
The film introduces a group of gay activists, trying to organize a pride parade in Belgrade. Among them Mirko (Goran Jevtić), a struggling theater director who mostly makes a living by planning kitschy wedding ceremonies on the side, and his love struck veterinarian boyfriend Radmilo (Miloš Samolov). Organizing such a parade is no easy task in Serbia as evidenced by the violence at the 2001 parade attempt. Now, almost a decade later, situation is not much better - nationalist and right wing groups pose just as much threat so despite repeated attempts through official channels, Mirko is getting nowhere since the police refuses to secure the event. Furthermore, although the two try to live discreetly, they still experience various forms of abuse from the homophobic majority.In parallel, we meet Limun, a macho Serbian veteran of the Yugoslav Wars
Yugoslav wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of wars, fought throughout the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. The wars were complex: characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs on the one side and Croats and Bosniaks on the other; but also...
in his mid-to-late forties. No stranger to various criminal activity, divorced Limun now operates a bodyguard agency (whose clientele mostly consists of controversial nouveau riche
Nouveau riche
The nouveau riche , or new money, comprise those who have acquired considerable wealth within their own generation...
businessmen and female turbo-folk
Turbo-folk
Turbo-folk is a popular musical sub-genre that originated in Serbia, the Balkans. Having mainstream popularity in Serbia, although closely associated with Serbian performers, its sound is as popular in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro...
singers) while dating Biserka (Hristina Popović), a much younger ditsy trophy girl who runs a beauty parlour.
The paths of the two couples soon cross. Radmilo performs a life-saving operation on Limun's beloved pitt-bull terrier, the victim of a drive-by shooting that served as warning to the dog's master. Through Radmilo and Limun, Biserka gets introduced to Mirko with a view of hiring him to plan out hers and Limun's wedding. The meeting of the two couples turns into a disaster that serves as the final catalyst for Mirko (who already obtained an Immigrant Visa for Canada) to leave the country forever.
In response Radmilo resorts to desperate measures to keep his partner and their relationship - He offers a deal to Limun, asking that Limun's agency provide protection for the Belgrade Pride. In return, Mirko will organize the wedding party for Limun and Biserka. Limun reluctantly accepts, but his staff refuses to protect homosexuals. Put in a tight spot, Limun thinks of hiring his enemies from the Yugoslav wars. Limun and Radmilo embark on a recruiting trip all over ex-Yugoslavia.
They manage to sign up for their mission: Niko (45) a Croat war veteran, Halil (40), a Bosnian Muslim, and Azem (45), an Albanian from Kosovo.
Production
According to its writer and director Dragojević, the film was conceived in summer 2001 while he watched the footage of the violent scenes at the attempted gay pride parade in Belgrade. He wrote the first screenplay draft for Parada in 2004 before coming back to it in 2007 after failing to secure financing for his other film project titled 1999.By fall 2009, he was ready to start shooting with the original plan being to shoot the parade scenes at the actual 20 September 2009 gay pride parade in Belgrade that ended up getting called-off due to security concerns. The shooting actually began a year later at the 2010 parade and continued in spring 2011 on locations in Croatia (Pag
Pag (island)
Pag is a Croatian island in the northern Adriatic Sea. It is the fifth-largest island of the Croatian coast, and the one with the longest coastline....
, Rab
Rab
Rab is an island in Croatia and a town of the same name located just off the northern Croatian coast in the Adriatic Sea.The island is long, has an area of and 9,480 inhabitants . The highest peak is Kamenjak at 408 meters...
, and Obrovac
Obrovac, Croatia
Obrovac is a town located in northern Dalmatia, in the Zadar County of Croatia. Town population is 1,500 people , and the whole Obrovac municipality has a population of 4,000 people. The town is located in the canyon of the river Zrmanja....
) and Macedonia (Bitola
Bitola
Bitola is a city in the southwestern part of the Republic of Macedonia. The city is an administrative, cultural, industrial, commercial, and educational centre. It is located in the southern part of the Pelagonia valley, surrounded by the Baba and Nidže mountains, 14 km north of the...
).
According to one of its producers Biljana Prvanović, Parada cost €1.3 million to make and its funding came from European Council
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
's Eurimages
Eurimages
Eurimages is the Council of Europe fund for the co-production, distribution, exhibition and digitisation of European cinematographic works. It aims to promote the European film industry by encouraging the production and distribution of films and fostering co-operation between professionals....
fund, Croatian Audio-Visual Center (HAVC), Serbian Ministry of Culture, Slovenian Ministry of Culture, Macedonian Ministry of Culture, and embassies of Germany, Holland, and France in Belgrade as well as Serbian companies Dunav Osiguranje, Prva Srpska Televizija
Prva Srpska Televizija
Prva or Prva Srpska Televizija or 1Prva is a Serbian commercial television network.Launched in December 2006, the network is owned by Greek Antenna Group since December 2009. From its inception until December 2009, the network was majority owned by global media conglomerate News Corporation...
, and Serbia Broadband
Serbia Broadband
SBB is the leading cable TV and broadband Internet provider in Serbia.Ownership structure:* Mid Europa Partners...
. Dragojević complained in interviews that over hundred Serbian companies turned him down for funding due to not wanting to be associated with a gay-themed project.
Director's Statement
General theatrical release
After the media screening on 28 October 2011, Parada premiered in Belgrade's Sava Centar on Monday, 31 October and in Serbian movie theaters from 1 November. Premiere in Novi Sad was held on November the 1st, and in Nis on 18th of November.The premieres in Bosnia and Croatia are scheduled for 7th and 28th November in Bijeljina
Bijeljina
Bijeljina is a city and municipality in northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. The city is the second largest in the Republika Srpska entity after Banja Luka and fifth largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is situated on the flat rich plains of Semberija...
and Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
, respectively, while the premieres in Slovenia and Montenegro are slated for December.
Serbia
In the mainstream Serbian print media, the film received generally positive reviews and notices. PolitikaBlics Milan Vlajčić classified the film as a "bitterly unbridled comedy that significantly departs from what usually constitutes a situation comedy in Serbia". He went on to compare Parada
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
' Producers
The Producers (1968 film)
The Producers is a 1968 American satirical dark comedy cult classic film written and directed by Mel Brooks. The film is set in the late 1960s and it tells the story of a theatrical producer and an accountant who want to produce a sure-fire Broadway flop...
and Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch was a German-born film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch."In 1947 he received an Honorary Academy Award for his...
's Ninotchka
Ninotchka
Ninotchka is a 1939 American film made for Metro Goldwyn Mayer by producer and director Ernst Lubitsch which stars Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas. It was written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch, based on a screen story by Melchior Lengyel. Ninotchka is Greta Garbo's first full...
, concluding that Dragojević "avoided banal moralizing while packing the film with funny stereotypes".
Danas
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...
' The Birdcage
The Birdcage
The Birdcage is a 1996 American comedy film directed by Mike Nichols, and stars Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Dan Futterman, Calista Flockhart, Hank Azaria, and Christine Baranski. The script was written by Elaine May...
and even Norman Jewison
Norman Jewison
Norman Frederick Jewison, CC, O.Ont is a Canadian film director, producer, actor and founder of the Canadian Film Centre. Highlights of his directing career include In the Heat of the Night , The Thomas Crown Affair , Fiddler on the Roof , Jesus Christ Superstar , Moonstruck , The Hurricane and The...
's The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming
The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming
The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming is an American comedy film. Based on the Nathaniel Benchley novel The Off-Islanders, the film was directed by Norman Jewison and adapted for the screen by William Rose....
while expressing concern that Dragojević's film won't have the intended effect of "ridding the stubborn majority of its phobias towards this stigmatized minority" because the director at some point stopped making a comedy and instead turned to creating a political pamphlet. Furthermore, the paper's columnist Svetislav Basara
Svetislav Basara
Svetislav Basara is a contemporary Serbian author...
wrote about the movie in his regular column, praising Paradas narrative form and extolling its virtue.
Press Branko Rosić gave the film a highly favourable notice, comparing its "hilarious dialogues" to Dragojević's highly-regarded earlier works, such as Lepa sela lepo gore and Rane
The Wounds
The Wounds is a 1998 Serbian drama film written and directed by Srđan Dragojević.It depicts the violent lives of two boys in Belgrade as they aspire to make names for themselves in the city's underworld...
.
Writer Marko Vidojković
Marko Vidojkovic
Marko Vidojković is Serbian novelist of the younger generation, distinguished for his "in-your-face", punkish attitude both in his novels and in public appearances...
devoted one of his columns in Kurir to the movie, describing the experience of watching Parada in one of Belgrade's multiplexes. Since at the time of his column, the movie was already a verified box office hit, approaching 200,000 admissions in Serbia alone, Vidojković praised Dragojević for "effectively organizing the biggest pride parade in the Balkans in his trademark Malcolm McLaren
Malcolm McLaren
Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren was an English performer, impresario, self-publicist and manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls...
esque manner".
The reviews in the Serbian online media are more mixed. Although he still gave Parada passing marks, Popboks' Đorđe Bajić has problems with the film's overall tone and its "lack of tact and subtlety", concluding that it "hits the target when it comes to delivering a loud and unconstrained pastime, but fails when it tries to be anything more than that". The review by KakavFilm.com is essentially more of the same while the review published by Filmovanje.com feels Parada could've been a great movie had Dragojević been more direct, brave, and worthwhile" concluding that "as it is, at times, you're not sure whether you're watching Tesna koža
Tesna koža
A Tight Spot is a 1982 Yugoslav comedy film directed by Mića Milošević and written by Siniša Pavić along with Ljiljana Pavić. The film achieved enormous popularity throughout SFR Yugoslavia. The film's success spawned three sequels by the end of the decade.-Plot:At 56 years of age Mita Pantić is...
or Šišanje". Reviewers from far-left portals E-novine and Peščanik were extremely critical of the film: the former's Vladan Petković sees Parada as "nothing more than a marketing trick" while the latter's Ajla Terzić refers to it as cinematic equivalent of kavurma, a cheap cholesterol-filled dish that's "consumed by lowbrow and low income masses who do so because it is affordable, thus disregarding its horrendous nutritional effects". Božidar Maslać of the centre-right portal NSPM concentrated on the movie's poster in his notice, feeling that that it "ripped-off the Belgrade Zoo logo" and seeing it as yet another plagiarism in Dragojević's cinematic career. On the hand, Marko Radojičić of medio.rs gave Parada a particularly favourable review, praising its casting, direction, attention to detail as well as its overall message. and City Magazine gave the film another glowing review, calling it Dragojević's best work. The film also received online notices from Slobodan Georgijev in BalkanInsight and Paul Canning on international LGBT website Care2
Bosnia
The film has been released only in the country's Serbian partRepublika Srpska
Republika Srpska is one of two main political entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina...
. Though still not widely reviewed, it got a negative notice from Nezavisne novine
Nezavisne Novine
Nezavisne novine is a daily newspaper based in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Prime Minister of the Republika Srpska entity, Milorad Dodik, provided some of funding for the launch of the newspaper. It was the first newspaper in Republika Srpska to publish articles about Serb war crimes....
s Branko Tomić who commends the movie's trailer, but reprimands Dragojević for "not being brave enough to shake up Serbia out if its slumber by showing it a passionate gay kiss". He further feels that the public set "big social expectations for the movie based upon the trailer and the director's earlier works", but thinks they will not be met and that the movie will disappear in the viewers' minds shortly after leaving the theater. Republic Srpska vice-president Emil Vlajki wrote at length about Parada in Fokus daily, seeing it as another tool of the US-sponsored "mental genocide" while labeling Dragojević "a talented director who sold his soul to the devil for fistful of dollars".