Legendary actor Petar Božović was a guest last week at the Balkan Panorama Film Festival in Izmir in Turkey.
The audience could watch some of his films, after which he received a lifetime achievement award. Božović described for Kurir his memories from this journey, and touches on the state of affairs in the cultural life.
Are you still processing the impressions from Izmir?
“It’s hard to organize a film festival and have it for the ninth time in the Balkans. Here, two people cannot agree on anything regarding the next day, let alone keep and cherish something for years. When you board a plane and get out of the everyday life, you see there are other things as well. New colours and languages. In Izmir, which history has marched through, I met people who have the same job and saw that there is a kind of camaraderie that means you don’t have to know each other; rather, you’re ‘gens una sumus’ (‘we are one family’), and not like it says on the bill – ‘dollar una sumus’. Incidentally, it’s a great feat bringing together the East and the West, which have been falling out, in the Balkans. The Balkans are a big classroom of history, which I don’t when will hear the sound of the bell signifying that the lesson is over.”
How did they reach you?
“A few years ago I met in Herceg Novi the director of the festival, Sali Salini, who is originally from Priboj and is married to a Serbian Turkish woman. Since then we’ve had an agreement that I come and be a guest at the festival. There was unrest and the earthquake in the meantime, which delayed my coming there.”
You received a lifetime achievement award. Which of your works did they screen?
“The film about Nikola Tesla, featuring Orson Welles, and then a part from Čekaj me, ja sigurno neću doći (Wait for Me, I Certainly Won’t Be Coming) and my famous monologue as a Love Doctor. In this way, they also showed my physical development. [Laughs.] I mostly hung out with Macedonians. It was short but hard. All the festivals are the same. It’s deplorable that such a festival passes unnoticed in our media despite Venice and Cannes.”
Speaking of your famous film, what was it like working with Orson Welles?
“I’ve often been asked that by journalists because they think that in such scenes your voice trembles and your knees are weak. However, the greater the actor, the easier it is to work with them, because their appearance and knowledge build a great trust.”
What should we do with our festivals?
“This immediately brings to mind the Film Encounters in Niš, which is our oldest festival. It doesn’t have an archive of its own, while Turks print a monograph for each year. A proper, thick volume. The new generations today don’t know the actors who came before them. Ask today’s youth who Milivoje Živanović is, or Ljubiša Janković. No one knows. It’s a disgrace. I got especially annoyed when the Macedonians told me that Meto Jovanovski had passed away. What do you mean – passed away? It’s a disgrace I wasn’t aware of that. Dušan Jovanović passed away, and I didn’t know about it for six months. No TV channel published this news. There is no one but the current actors in these hit TV series. There’s just them. And it’s bad for them too. You should be part of a continuity.”
You are a good example of that. We will watch you this year in the film Megdan (The Duel). Are you glad that Đorđe Balašević appreciated you as an actor?
“According to Aleksa Balašević, his father picked me for that role. I’d met Đorđe a few times, but I didn’t get a chance to spend some more time with him. I was hit hard when he passed away. He was at our home all the time.”
Is there a recipe for how to last?
“I don’t know it. I’d share it with everyone, but no one would listen.”
What do you see as an acute problem of the Serbian culture from the standpoint of an actor?
“The divisions and multiple actors’ associations. There’s no unity, or a law on the theatre. Our culture is in the Bronze Age, and perhaps it’s entering the Iron one. Has anyone in Parliament, from the ruling party or the opposition, mentioned culture? Let’s not discuss politics, turn off the voice recorder. No, turn it back on nonetheless!
“The most important thing is that the budget percentage set aside for culture is as high as possible, so you could build the Opera and Ballet Houses. Prince Mihailo Obrenović built the theatre by selling Mangalitzas to the Austrians. Nothing has changed since then. There are three families living in a single apartment with a shared bathroom, just like after the war. Shopping malls are being constructed, as well as the Belgrade Waterfront. You could have fit in there the Opera and Ballet buildings. We do have the example of the Sydney Opera House… The whole world will come to the Expo, and we’ll still be looking at the National Theatre. I appeal to the authorities that an Opera and Ballet House get their home at the Belgrade Waterfront.”
On Novak Đoković
‘He’s the only child of our nation and ought to be put on gold coins and in textbooks’
Do you get annoyed because of Novak Đoković?
“I knew that he would lose, I could feel it. Novak Đoković is a person who should be put in all the textbooks. I think that, had Novak been in Kosovo, we would have never lost that battle. We have great athletes, which speaks to the hardiness of a people. We went through a biological disaster in the two world wars, which makes you wonder where it is boiling from. There are others, but Novak is the only child of our nation. They have asked if his likeness should be put on a bill. That was completely wrong because it’s expendable. Novak should be put on a gold coin. Everyone would buy it for a birthday or a wedding.”
