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DOKUFEST 2021

Review: Telenovela: Grey-Scale in Color

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- Filip Martinović's first feature is an an engaging autobiographical docufiction hybrid with meta elements and a subtle but definitely present social aspect

Review: Telenovela: Grey-Scale in Color

The first feature-length film by Serbian director Filip Martinović, Telenovela - Greyscale in Color is an engaging autobiographical docufiction hybrid with meta elements that are right there in the title. The film received a special mention in Dokufest's Balkan Dox competition.

The movie opens with an audition for a parody of a telenovela, or perhaps a telenovela in earnest - with such an overaccentuated form, it is hard to tell what is a joke and what is simply over the top. This takes place at Belgrade Faculty of Drama Arts, and two girls act out a fabulous scene as "Las hermanas vengadoras" before they launch into a hearty a capella rendering of Azúcar Moreno's Eurovision megahit "Bandido". After getting an applause from Martinović and another couple of members of the crew, they explain they are a singer and a teacher, and like many people who grew up in Serbia in the 1990s, they learned Spanish just by watching what was then locally known as "Spanish series."

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Such audition segments will intersperse the film proper which really deals with identity, roots and belonging. In the 1990s as the Yugoslav wars were starting, Martinović's family had emigrated to Barcelona, and he returned to Serbia for good three years ago. Clearly driven to explore his origins, he visits his aunt who is a nun in a monastery in central Serbia. She shows him on the map where in Croatia his family hails from - the area of Kordun, infamous for persecution of Serbs by the Ustasha in the 1940s and the forces of the new state of Croatia in the 1990s - and says that a great-grandfather of his is buried there. He will go look for his grave.

In Barcelona, the director discusses with his mother if he should move his father's ashes to Serbia. While the nun, father's sister, claims he always wanted to come back, mom is adamant that he had built his home in Spain, and she plans to be buried next to him, despite living with a new boyfriend, a sympathetic, moustachioed Catalan bar owner.

To top all this, Martinović's girlfriend is an Ethiopian immigrant living in Spain since she was ten, and he takes her to Belgrade, and on to Kordun. Talk about culture shock: the communication between her and their hosts in the remote village is both endearing and frustrating, providing some of the liveliest moments of the film.

At 65 minutes, Telenovela - Greyscale in Color packs a lot of fun but also details that expand its social scope. At one point, Martinović follows protests around the Catalan referendum, regretting that he is not there. The host in Kordun relates his disappointment with Serbs who sold their land cheaply and left, and the nun aunt's opinions are expected for, well, a Christian Orthodox nun.

An extra value is added by Marko Milovanović's assured camerawork and strong, vibrant colours in the film's wild variety of locations. Smooth editing by Ana Žugić and Olga Košarić makes it run like wind, and in the end, the telenovela itself, which takes up the penultimate chapter (or episodio - all narrative titles are in Spanish against a kitschy background) of the film is actually its least accomplished part. The auditions themselves, with a bunch of dedicated Serbian fans of such fare, are really more spirited and socially insightful than the "finished product."

Telenovela is a co-production of Serbia's Gulu Gulu, Cinnamon Productions and the Belgrade Faculty of Drama Arts.

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