26 November 2009.

DARKO LUNGULOV’S FILMS

The films of Serbian directors keep winning awards at international film festivals. Thus the debut of young director Darko Lungulov, HERE AND THERE, recently won seven awards at prestigious international festivals. More in the CULTURAL CHRONICLE, prepared by Slavka Sunajko.

HERE AND THERE, a film by Darko Lungulov, currently shown in Serbian cinemas, has recentlz won seven awards at various international festivals. It won three awards at a prestigious international film and TV festival Cinéma Tous Ecrans in Geneva it won three awards – the Golden Reflexion for Best Direction (Reflet d’Or pour la meilleure realization), FIPRESCI award of international film critics and the Titra award, a support to the distribution of cinema in Switzerland (Prix Titra Film SA Encouragement à la distribution cinéma - Award to distributor). At US festivals, the film won four awards -Spirit of Independence, for best foreign film direction and for best actor in a foreign film, awarded to David Thornton, who plays the main role. It won these three awards at  Fort Lauderdale International and was also proclaimed best foreign film in the Orlando film festival. In June, at the international film festival in Hoboken, USA, David Thornton won the award for best actor. At the prestigious Tribeca International Film Festival in New York, the film was proclaimed best New York narrative. It also won a special jury award at the Skip City Festival in Japan and was also shorlisted by critics of the most distinguished „Variety“ film magazine at the festival in Karlovy Vary.

At the recently held film festival in Thessaloniki, it won the second award of the audience, while the first award went to another Serbian film, THE HONEYMOON, by Goran Paskaljević. HERE AND THERE is to participate in several other international festivals and has been included in cinema distribution in Germany, Switzerland, Greece and Hungary. Under way are negotiations with distributors in the USA, where the film is to be shown next year.

The idea for story – about an American who meets a Serbian immigrant in New York and they arrange that the latter should marry the former’s girlfriend in Serbia to obtain a green card occurred to Lungulov during his film studies at a college in NY. In this tale of a quest for hope, the main roles are played by Serbian actors Branislav Trifunović, Mirjana Karanović, Jelena Mrđa, American actor David Thornton and Cindy Lauper, a music star of the 1980s.

Darko Lungulov was born in Belgrade and went to NY in 1991. He studied cinema at the  City College of New York. In the period from 1997 to 2003, when he returned to Belgrade, he made a documentary film „Escape“, awarded by the audience at the Hamptons Festival in 2004 and was shown at numerous world festivals. His new film will be A Monument to Michael Jackson, a comedy inspired by a bizzare trend taking place as of recently in small towns in Serbia – the building of monuments to film and pop culture icons. American actors will be acting in this film as well.