Your new movie Night
Guards - in a few words, what is it about?
It’s about two night
guards in an abandoned
factory and their life after death.
With Night
Guards being in a way a ghost movie, is that a genre dear to you,
and to what part did Serbia's at times violent past play into the writing
of the film? And other sources of inspiration for Night
Guards? The story is inspired by today's situation
of many abandoned factories in Serbia, which mostly only have guards. They
still come to work even though they were not paid for several years, in
the hope that the country will reinstall their old life. However, for the country
they are only "ghosts". How would you describe your directorial
approach to your subject at hand? I
wanted to show the story from the perspective of the spirits who have
contact with living people and the situation seemed interesting to me,
because usually horror stories are written from the perspective of the
living. This led me to play a game with their thoughts and maybe
memories if they have any.
Since the location is
one of the key elements of Night
Guards, you just have to talk about yours for a bit, and what were
the advantages but also challenges of filming there? For
every horror film location and production design are a very important
elements. As far as I know, there are not a lot of movies shot in
abandoned factories. In my case, the abandoned factory was excellent and
almost free space. The best is that we did not have to set anything up but literally
just plug in the camera and shoot. We had problems with electricity that
was needed for lighting and crew on the set though. What
can you tell us about your key cast and crew, and why exactly these
people? The
older guard is played by a professional actor, Dragan Marinkovic, my
father. He is an actor at a local theater in my city in Serbia. He has appeared in many
theater productions and TV series. The younger guard is played by Stevan
Matic, an amateur actor. He is very young and proved talented in many jobs
regarding the
film. The girl is played by Viktorija Arsic and the boy by Marko Vuckovic
- young professional actors who are at the beginning of their acting
careers.
I chose them because of their desire to help a young director and their desire to do something different.
Do talk about the shoot as such for a bit, and
the on-set atmosphere? The filming took two days, precisely two nights.
The crew did not have much free time, except for short breaks to rest, so
it was a tense atmosphere to get everything done the way we wanted to. Only
a few days later we were able to relax and think about the shoot. Now what can you tell us about
audience and critical reception of Night
Guards so far, and when and where will the film be released onto
the general public? A few days ago I
signed a contract with After Hours HD for the rights to distribute the
film. The film will be available soon on Xbox and OTT platforms. For now
it is playing at festivals in Greece, Uruguay and Serbia. The film received
several positive reviews from Austria, Great Britain and the USA. Particular
praise was given to the story from the perspective of a ghost. Any future projects you'd like to
share? I am working on a student project on history, because
I'm ahistory student. I'm planning to create a film about Serbian history
for elementary school
students. This film will help them to enjoy studying "boring" history. I am
slowly collecting money and
crew for a new horror movie, too. What got you into filmmaking in the first place,
and did you receive any formal education on the subject? I
don’t have any education in filmmaking. I came into the world of
filmmaking in high school when I started watching horror movies. I
had a great desire to shoot my own film. What also influenced me were my
surroundings since my father is actor and I literally grew up in the
theater. What
can you tell us about your filmwork prior to Night
Guards?
I
have two more horror movies, Daimon and Fallen Angel. This are amateur
found footage films.
Daimon is about four high school students
who went to some creepy house in their village. "Daimon"
means demon in ancient Greek. Fallen Angel follows a group
of young artists who go to the theater to
record their play. However, they find themselves locked in the building
… Looking for a way out, they are stumbling upon some strange paranormal phenomena. In
all of this confusion, a girl appears who leads them to the past,
so-called flash back, and shows them the terrible historical background of the building. They discover that the
building is not just haunted, but but inhabited by another, more evil
being, the so called Fallen Angel. He is the one who invented the game,
dictates the rules and determines the one who will survive. A few words about the indie film scene
in Serbia, and how easy or hard is it to get a project like Night
Guards off the ground? Indie
film production doesn’t exist in Serbia. All movies in Serbia was
made with part of the money coming from the state, another part
painstakingly collected from sponsors. The only horror movie that was filmed in the past few years
without the participation of the Serbian state was Mamula, a film directed by
Milan Todorovic. For my film it's very hard to get attention, because
locally, my film shows a
mockery of local government. How would you describe
yourself as a director?
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A young director who is eager to learn from more experienced colleagues. A young man who makes mistakes of course, but
who from film
to film is making his way into the world of cinema. Filmmakers who inspire you?
Serbian
director Dejan Zecevic. Horror director James Wan and the one and only Steven
Spielberg.
Your
favourite movies? The Spanish horror movie Rec. Horror movies by
James Wan, The Conjuring and Insidious. Your website, Facebook, whatever else?
My
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/marko.marinkovic.52056
Thanks
for the interview! Thank
you.
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