21/04/2022 - The Serbian director chatted with us about his thriller set in post-war Kosovo

Immediately after the war ended in Kosovo, most families of both Serbian and Albanian nationality were evacuated; many of them came out of the other side of the conflict physically and psychologically devastated. Those who stayed behind were forced to co-exist with a constant sense of fear, and a sense of distrust which fuelled the need for vengeance. And in villages, people began selling off their own farms in the hope of escaping fresh conflict. This is where Darkling [+see also:
film review
interview: Dušan Milić
film profile] begins, a movie directed by Dušan Milić who was born in Belgrade, who made his name in 2003 by way of Strawberries in the Supermarket (produced by Emir Kusturica) and who set aside some time for us to discuss his new film, which has all the hallmarks of a thriller. Set in post-war Kosovo, Darkling follows members of a Serbian family who live under the protection of the KFOR military forces, but who are alone and assailed by unbearable anxiety at night.

Following a stint at the Trieste Film Festival (walking away with the Audience Award) and at its Belgradian counterpart (scooping Best Film and Best Actress for Danica Curcic), Darkling was released in Serbia in March and is now beginning its tour of Italian cinemas today, 21 April, courtesy of A_LAB in collaboration with Lo Scrittoio.

Cineuropa: The frightened face of the film’s young protagonist Milica (Miona Ilov) brings to mind the girls and boys currently fleeing Ukraine.
Dušan Milić: This war isn’t a new thing for us; the situation in Ukraine is more or less the same as that experienced by the various populations of former Yugoslavia twenty years ago. The bombings carried out by NATO had the same impact on our region. More than likely, at this precise time in Ukraine, there are girls the exact same age as Darkling’s protagonist who are going through the same things that Milica has experienced in the film. There are many conflicts which still haven’t been definitively resolved. There’s always someone attacking and someone suffering, and an ongoing sense of looming danger and death.

Unlike the current war in Ukraine, we all remember the war in Yugoslavia as a conflict between neighbours, fuelled by nationalism but also ethnic, religious and cultural drivers. Your neighbour became your enemy, a monster. Is this what’s at the heart of your film?
Generally speaking, rather than focusing solely on the war in Kosovo, it was primarily a civil war for religious reasons between “neighbours”: Catholics, Orthodox followers and Muslims. After Tito’s death, Yugoslavia started to fall apart and, once the wall came down, conflicts raged. I develop a very specific idea in the film. When you see those flames and those fires, in my mind they’re an allegorical representation of the “force majeure” which all of us were caught up in over there. There’s a conflict between Serbians and Albanians, but force majeure acts as some sort of umbrella over these little entities who are all fighting one another.

The war in Yugoslavia became a genre all of its own in the film world, full of Balkan drama and humour. You’ve opted for a very different style – the thriller – in order to tackle this subject. Why?
I don’t have a documentary maker’s approach, I feel more at ease with fiction, but this story was based on real events experienced by this little girl. I simply developed all the various elements which were needed for my stylistic approach, which is a “genre” approach. Then I decided to put these different genre elements together because I thought it would help the film reach a wider audience.

The movie is produced by Serbia in co-production with Italy, Bulgaria, Denmark and Greece. Could you tell us how this came about?
While carrying out research in Kosovo, I learned that there was, and still is, an international military force led by NATO which is responsible for restoring peace and order. The nations involved at the time were France, Germany, the UK, the USA and Italy. The Italian soldiers were the ones who showed the most empathy and who helped the Serbian people, and I wanted to emphasise this in the film. So I needed to have an Italian actor in the cast, playing a KFOR soldier. I was interested in having an Italian outfit involved in the film’s production and I found one at Trieste’s When East Meets West co-production forum in 2018. After securing Italy as a partner, Bulgaria, Denmark and Greece joined the team.

(Translated from Italian)