Truth Is Relative to the Director’s Vision

Radovanovic began his talk by expressing his delight about being in Iran for the first time, also noting that less than 10 days ago, he had received an award that is in essence “The Asian Oscar”, where Majid Majidi also received a lifetime achievement award, citing this as another point of linkage to Iran. 

He added that he’s been involved in making fiction and documentary films, and the projects he chooses rely on his mood at the time of making the film and what he wants to express. 

He expressed the belief that while Fiction films are a chance to tell stories and use imagination, documentaries are more rooted in the realm of analysis. 

“Almost all my films are about Serbian internal affairs.” 

He noted: “Almost all my films are about Serbian international affairs. As opposed to many Western filmmakers who, due to a 'post-colonial mindset’, focus their films mostly on third-world countries.

He added, “Filmmaking is a subconscious process. During the shoot, I’m occupied with the film all 24 hours of the day. Editing for me is not a phase separate from directing, but it’s “The last natural step in directing” the film. Sometimes, after editing, I go back to the location for a day or two to shoot some additional footage. But the essence of the work is already formed.”  

Radovanovic stressed that” There’s no such thing as documentary reality. If this workshop had been filmed by different directors, we would get five different versions of 'reality'. One might only film the lecturer, one the interpreter, the third would film the audience, and another director might solely focus on the women present. 

“What is Cinematic Truth?” 

He added: “Hence, reality is dependent on the director’s vision, which is often called 'Cinematic Truth” A film needs to have three characteristics to be classified as a documentary: Real characters, real locations, and a real situation. All these elements can be recreated, and an honest recreation of these three elements is not a lie, but rather part of the cinematic language.

Radovanic continued by giving an important example of recreating reality: “ While making a documentary in Kosovo, I witnessed helicopters flying over many times, but it didn’t make sense to wait for an authentic helicopter to film.  Instead, we created the image of a helicopter through CGI. 

He stressed: “This was not a lie, but the recreation of a reality that existed there,” and added, “ I’m always in pursuit of making things that haven’t been made befor,e and I enjoy new challenges.”