Vinko Brešan’s film What a Country! was presented at today’s press conference, where producer Ivan Maloča said the secret of the film is Vinko Brešan himself. He did, however, admit that working on the film was very difficult: “Filming was extremely difficult and complicated due to the weather, the scenes at Lepoglava, and the challenge of recreating Tuđman’s tomb”, he said.

Producer Maja Vukić said that Brešan is aways provocative and interesting, and that the themes of his films always surprising. “The film is great, the theme is excellent, and it has a nice international cast”, she said. The film is a Croatian, Serbian, and Polish co-production.

Ana Bulajić Črček was the make-up designer for the film, and she had the challenging task of showing the politicians everybody knows, but not taking it to the level of caricature. “Our goal was for the characters to have an urban, clean look, and we found inspiration everywhere around us”, she said.

Production designer Damir Gabelica also had a difficult task: recreate the 100 square metre tomb of Tuđman and the coffin he had no idea what it looked like. “The only way to see the coffin was with a flag on it, so we had a hard time finding out what it really looks like. By chance we came in contact with the person who made the coffin and we accidentally found out that the same person made the coffin for Slobodan Milošević; we were very lucky to find out about that”, Gabelica said. As he said, they used the blue screen technique in filming the tomb. The prison scenes were also challenging, but they had the help of the prisoners, who very accommodating.

The film has already won an award at a film festival in Serbia, and is soon to be screened at other film festivals as well, while Croatian Radiotelevision is expected to broadcast it in autumn.

The same production crew will present the film Extracurricular in two days’ time, and in autumn they will start filming with Zrinko Ogresta.

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