Just like any other working day, Sunday offered its fair share of festival events. The jocular and talkative director and co-scriptwriter of The Reaper, Zvonimir Jurić, joined the audiences after the screening of the film in Kosovel Hall in the accompaniment of actors Igor Kovač (who portrayed Josip) and Peter Musevski. Chatting with the moderator Toni Cahunek, the filmmaker revealed that after the resoundingly successful The Blacks he wasn’t much bothered about his next film, he went by the philosophy of “whatever will be, will be.” “If I had thought about it too much, I could have ended up killing myself,” he added. Mention had to be made of the many awards that the film has been showered with (e.g. – the Best Cinematography, Best Male Leading Role and Best Male Supporting Role Golden Arena Awards at this year’s Pula Film Festival). The director admitted that he was not partial to the viewers’ opinion: “Whoever says that is lying. The film is your child. At a certain point, it stops being that and goes out into the world and one has to let that happen – but you are far from being indifferent.” He countered the intimate sentimentality of this statement by reflecting on his filmmaking profession: “There’s nothing terrifying about it, there are worse jobs than that of a director and I know that, as a filmmaker, I am privileged.”

We learnt that the film was shot in the outskirts of the city of Zagreb, which was more practical financially and the crew carefully selected the areas with Slavonian atmosphere. The story is wholly fictitious without any references to real-life events. Jurić came up with the idea for the film while reading Sanctuary by William Faulkner, whose shocking rape scene left a profound impression on him, yet it only provided for a starting point to which ever new elements were added. He also explained that “the counterpoint between silence and noise” was a considerably simple effect that can, with a little effort, be used to great advantage by allowing for the silence and noise to be mutually supportive, which Jurić indubitably succeeded in masterfully. The actor Igor Kovač commended the director for his people skills. “Even after a sustained effort many directors fail to communicate to the cast how exactly they want them to portray their characters,” revealed Kovač – while Jurić was able to guide him expertly, which resulted in a rewarding cooperation.

Andraž Jež

Photo: Iztok Dimc
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