The bigger picture

It may not rank up there with Hollywood – or even Bollywood. Nor does it have the renown of the cinema of France, the UK or Italy.

Yet the film industry in southeastern Europe has been quietly reasserting itself over the past decade with, in particular, Balkan cinema being celebrated at increasingly high-profile festivals, notably in Sarajevo.

Foreign directors, including top names from the US, have also sought to use the region’s cityscapes and stunning mountain scenery as locations for films and television series, with local studios also capitalising on their lower costs and government support.

Filmmakers in southeastern Europe can draw on a long cinematic tradition, as well as some traumatic experiences over recent decades – dictatorship and, in some cases, internecine war.

Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, became a byword for the vicious conflict that erupted in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.

Yet the city is forging a new identity, with the film festival that was launched towards the end of the 44-month siege of the city, playing an important role. Indeed, its filmmakers have produced some darkly satirical movies about the conflict.

“Our recent history has been massively televised, so our contemporary narratives – our stories – are strongest in the medium of film,” says Amra Baksic Camo, who heads the festival’s development and financing platform for regional projects. “We have lived in interesting times and we have great films to make.”

The Sarajevo festival has built its reputation on the back of the revival in the region’s cinema following a post-communist slump that was not helped by economic hardship and a loss of funding.

Along with war and its aftermath, common themes are the trauma of the communist era and its troubled end, and the boredom and desperation felt by many, particularly the young.

John Cooper, director of the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in the US, noted the success during a visit to Sarajevo in September, when he praised the “already rich film history and the new film history that is starting here”.

He also lauded the University of Sarajevo’s School of Science and Technology’s Film Factory school, established under the leadership of Béla Tarr, the Hungarian director.

According to Lily Lynch, editor-in-chief of Balkanist, a website that covers the region, the renaissance began with the so-called “new wave” of Romanian films in the 2000s, led by Cristi Puiu’s 2005 black comedy The Death of Mr Lazarescu.

Prior to that, Sarajevo-born Emir Kusturica (right) had been instrumental in putting the region’s filmmakers on the cinema map, particularly with Underground (1995), which spans Yugoslav history from the second world war through Tito’s rule to the country’s break-up, and Black Cat White Cat (1998), a comedy that pokes fun at Balkan gangsters.

Romanian Cristian Mungiu won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2007 for his drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, about two friends in the Ceausescu era attempting to organise an illegal abortion. There were further plaudits this year when Calin Peter Netzer won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for Child’s Pose, a drama about a dysfunctional family.

While southeastern Europe is sometimes viewed as one entity by critics – much the same way as it is by investors – Camo says it is difficult to generalise.

In Serbia, for instance, cinema has taken a darker turn, with filmmakers drawing on the experiences of a society bruised by war, territorial loss and economic stagnation. Maja Milos’s Clip, a depiction of teenage sexuality and substance abuse in suburban Belgrade, won an award at last year’s Rotterdam Film Festival. More disturbing, and less well received, have been Srdjan Spasojevic’s A Serbian Film (2010) and Mladen Djordjevic’s The Life and Death of a Porno Gang (2009).

“We share some history, but our contemporary life and the state of the industry in each country are very different,” says Camo. “But some of the strongest voices in European cinema today are from eastern Europe. The films travel and … the industry is getting stronger.”

As Camo and Lynch both note, the support of governments has been crucial for nurturing the revival. Policies to promote investment in film production not only help local filmmakers but are also important in attracting international directors and producers to shoot in the region. This is also building on an historical legacy in some countries – Yugoslavia, for instance, was a favoured location for Hollywood before the wars of the 1990s. Lynch points out that Hungary offers a 20 per cent rebate on spending in the country to incentivise filmmaking.

The most recent film in the Die Hard franchise, 2013’s A Good Day to Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis, was filmed in Budapest, Hungary’s capital.

Serbia introduced a similar rule last year for foreign film productions, while Croatia has a 20 per cent rebate on qualifying expenditures for major projects and a comprehensive strategic programme designed to raise its profile as an international filmmaking hub.

The city of Dubrovnik on the Croatian Adriatic scored a coup when it was picked as a location by the makers of the hugely successful US television drama series Game of Thrones – the walled city and surrounding islands doubling as the capital of the imaginary kingdom of Westeros.

Game of Thrones, based on the novels by George RR Martin, was one of the first to benefit from Croatia’s film-friendly policies. According to Ana Starcevic of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, about 10 projects have taken advantage of the scheme, bringing in more than £10m to the local economy. “This is great news for tourism and the film industry in Croatia. We expect film tourism to increase in 2014. Spending by production companies is up 184 per cent on last year’s figure,” she says.

The indirect economic impact may be considerably greater. Thanks to the popularity of the television series, several travel agencies are offering Game of Thrones tours, says Tonko Rilovic, director of the Croatian National Tourism Office in the UK. “Dubrovnik’s popularity as a city break destination has grown substantially,” he says.

Romania is also getting in on the act. Anthony Minghella’s Cold Mountain was partly filmed in the Carpathians, while Jai Ho, a Bollywood film starring Salman Khan, was shot in the picturesque Transylvanian city of Sibiu.

On the other side of the Balkans, Bulgaria, which already provides direct state funding for filmmaking, is also moving towards similar incentive packages. Do Combe, head of production at Sofia-based Nu Boyana Film Studios, says even without government incentives, the studio has some of the lowest rates in Europe, while offering international standards of production and a variety of sets, including the biggest Roman set in Europe.

The studio was also involved in the making of 300: Rise of the Empire – a follow up to the comic book-inspired blockbuster 300 – the film with the largest budget of any shot in Bulgaria.

According to Avi Lerner, chief executive of Millennium Films, US filmmakers bring about €40m a year to Bulgaria, accounting for almost 90 per cent of total film investment in the country. He says about 4,000 Bulgarians are employed annually by Hollywood productions, with more than 1,500 Bulgarian companies benefiting.

He adds, however, that low costs are a factor in luring filmmakers to southeastern Europe – the industry’s average wage is just Lv900 ($625) a month.

They might not know it, but cinemagoers are likely to be seeing more of southeastern Europe on screen in the years to come.