‘IT WAS KIČIĆ’S GRANDFATHER’S WISH FOR US TO MAKE FILM ABOUT BARREN ISLAND’: Svetozar Cvetković on his work and role as producer
Ahead of the Easter holidays, actor Svetozar Cvetković appeared in a premiere of UFO, a new play by the Russian writer Ivan Vyrypaev, at the Atelje 212 theatre. Young director Isidora Goncić cast him as the writer himself, who leads his colleagues Svetislav Goncić, Dragana Lukić, Lana Adžpć, Luka Grbić, and Đorđe Stojković through an unusual story about whether aliens and God exist.
Cvetković shared his impressions about the new production in his interview with Kurir, touching also on his plans to produce an interesting film.
The topic of this play is very interesting.
“I’ve been concerning myself with Vyrypaev as a writer for a long time. The plot of this production seems very simple. The writer and director himself, Ivan Vyrypaev, who I play, wants to make a film about people who have had encounters with aliens , and he is searching for them across the world. He manages to find them, does a casting, and reduces their number to 14. Then four of them are out because they’re mad, so finally he makes 10 stories about those remaining.”
Do we find any answers in this play?
“The reality of the protagonists of this production looks different from our illusion. They have felt something that we haven’t and think they have the right to their own opinion regarding aliens. We’re moving in a world of illusions there that we have created for ourselves by ourselves. The text provides no answers, but it poses much bigger and more important questions.”
What are they?
“It would take more than a couple of hours for me to talk about the questions that we’re asking. We don’t know anything about certain things, and yet we accept them as they are. We’d better not get into the details here, because then we would have to pose the key question about the existence of God in an atheist society such as hours.”
Is it a form of illness that we take everything for granted?
“It’s not an illness, but a fact. We accept others’ delusions as truths and knowledge. Still, I live a life of a generation that was told that there is only one truth, only to be told later – after 30 or 40 years – that that was a lie and that there was a new truth.”
What message are you sending to us through this play as the writer?
“Go to the theatre, because you can see some things that you take for granted in life, whereas there someone asks you questions as well.”
You sit in the audience for the better part of the play. How does the audience see all that?
“I’ve seen the whole play some ten times. It feels different every time, and that is what gives beauty to playing on the stage. I hasten to add that the performance is significantly different each time.”
This is not the first time for you to be in an Ivan Vyrypaev play. Atelje 212 even received an award for the production of Drunks at the Sterijino Pozorje Festival, and you are the only one in the cast who doesn’t drink. How did you get the role?
“It’s best if you ask director Boris Liješević why he picked me.”
Could you compare UFO and Drunks ?
“There are a lot of similarities. You are plagued in life by questions for which you cannot find an answer.”
You are currently filming season two of the TV series Crna svadba (The Black Wedding), and preparing a film about The Barren Island. How is the film coming along?
“We’re short of funds. I don’t expect the filming to start soon. The idea that Miša Radivojević and myself make a film about The Barren Island has been around for some ten years or so. The famous doctor Miroljub Kičić, grandfather of my colleague Gordan Kičić, shared with Miša his wish for Radivojević to write a script based on the story “The Island on the Bottom”, which is what he did with his son.”
(Kurir.rs / Lj.R.)
