Срджан Драгоевић: Биография и творческий путь.

Serbian film director and screenwriter (born 1963)

Srđan Dragojević (, , born 1 January 1963) is a Serbian film director and screenwriter, who emerged in the 1990s as a significant figure in Serbian cinema. From 2010 until 2017, he was affiliated with the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS). In late August 2013 he became an SPS MP in the Serbian National Assembly.

Born to a journalist father Anđelko Dragojević (1934 2017) hailing from Srbica and a French translator mother Ljiljana, Dragojević once described himself as a "child of middle level communist nomenklatura in Serbia". His father worked as a staff writer at Belgrade based daily newspapers Borba and Večernje novosti, including a managerial stint at OOUR Novosti media company. In his early youth, Dragojević played bass guitar in the punk/new wave band TV Moroni. He also dabbled in journalism, writing for Polet newspaper and Start (magazin) magazine. He obtained a degree in clinical psychology from the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Philosophy. In parallel, Dragojević was active in poetry, publishing a book of poems called Knjiga akcione poezije (The Book of Action Poetry) in 1986 and winning the prestigious Brankova nagrada for it. By his own admission, much of his poetry was inspired by the 1920s Soviet art and poets like Vladimir Mayakovsky:
In 1987, Dragojević passed the entrance exam for the film and TV direction program at the University of Arts' Faculty of Dramatic Arts (FDU) where he studied under the tutelage of Radomir Bajo Šaranović. He subsequently published one more book of poetry, Čika kovač potkiva bebu, in 1988 before devoting fully to film. He briefly came back to poetry in 1995 as an already established film director to release Katkad valja pročitati poneku knjigu da ne ispadnete glupi u društvu.

Dragojević made his directorial debut at the age of twenty nine with 1992's Mi nismo anđeli whose screenplay he had previously written as well. What was essentially his FDU graduate thesis project, an irreverent youth comedy set in Belgrade about a geeky teenage girl who gets impregnated by a local lothario, turned out to be a huge cinema box office hit in FR Yugoslavia and eventually in the rest of the former Yugoslav countries. During the film's promotional cycle in 1992 in FR Yugoslavia, young and telegenic Dragojević talked about not approaching Mi nismo anđeli artistically, i. e., consciously attempting to make a commercial movie via gambling on the teen comedy sub genre that had no prior root in Yugoslavia. The upstart director further described his general approach to filmmaking as "trying to deliver professional cinematic offerings that resemble those from the West". He was next hired along with sr to co write a star vehicle for turbo folk star Dragana Mirković that eventually became 1994's widely panned, Vladimir Živković directed, romantic musical comedy lt=Slatko od snova. Produced by influential Serbian show business agent manager Radoslav Raka Đokić whose clients included local top selling young starlets of the folk music genre, the high budget film was envisioned as twenty five year old Dragana Mirković's cinematic platform meant to showcase her in a different light musically (more dance pop less commercial folk) and thus increase her nationwide fame, much like Đokić had managed to do for his other famous client Lepa Brena several years earlier with her Hajde da se volimo film that grew into a hugely successful two sequel money generating franchise. Following the same pattern, Đokić again threw funds at prominent individuals from the local cinematography. Attracted by his money, numerous Serbian film and music industry people (including Dragojević, Branka Katić, Nebojša Bakočević, Rambo Amadeus, etc.) normally completely disassociated from and even ideologically opposed to the commercial folk music milieu flocked to do the film. Still, Slatko od snova was a box office flop, only managing to become a camp guilty pleasure in the years since for its over the top excess. The year 1994 also saw Dragojević write and direct a made for TV musical comedy Dva sata kvalitetnog TV programa ("Two Hours of Quality TV Programming") that aired on RTS television's third channel (3K) as part of their New Year's Eve 1995 programming. During next year, 1995, he directed a couple of episodes of the RTS series Otvorena vrata ("Open Doors").

Four years after his debut, Dragojević finally returned to directing feature films this time completely breaking out of the youth genre to tackle the gruesome issues related to the ongoing Yugoslav Wars with a controversial drama containing elements of dark comedy, Lepa sela lepo gore, set in war torn Bosnia. In addition to critical praise, the movie made a measurable commercial impact with more than 700,000 tickets sold domestically during its theatrical run. It also raised plenty of controversy across Europe over its ideological aspects: while many saw it as a powerful denouncement of war, others viewed it as "fascist cinema". The movie was even refused entry at the 1996 Venice Film Festival in addition to splitting the jury at the 1996 Thessaloniki International Film Festival that ultimately denied it the main prize despite being an overwhelming hit with the festival's audience. In North America, the film received more or less universal critical praise as Dragojević started getting courted by Hollywood almost immediately following the film's notable run on the festival circuit across the continent. He signed with William Morris Agency in late summer 1996 and got flown to Los Angeles where he had meetings with different studio heads. However, deeply dissatisfied with the scripts he was being offered, the director decided to come back home and do another film in Serbia. Therefore, the only tangible result of his brief flirtation with Hollywood on this occasion was the deal with Fox Lorber for the North American limited theatrical and home video distribution of Lepa sela lepo gore. Back home on the political front, Dragojević supported the 1996 97 anti government demonstrations by speaking at rallies and taking part in protest walks. In 1998 Dragojević gave a bleak and critical portrayal of life in Slobodan Milošević's Serbia in Rane, which was another critical success for the young director. Loosely based on a true story, its plot follows the descent of two Belgrade youngsters from youthful exuberance into juvenile delinquency and hard criminality amid economic sanctions in FR Yugoslavia as their personal relationship transforms from close friendship to impulsively vicious rivalry. Released in May 1998 and, like most local productions, funded in large part by state institutions such as the state run broadcaster RTS, the film elicited a stern response from the government elements that did not appreciate the director's brutal portrayal of Milošević's Serbia. Though they didn't ban the movie outright, they severely impacted its promotional cycle by refusing to run the film's ads in the state run print and electronic media outlets. During the film's promotion on the festival circuit in North America, Dragojević expressed concern that he wouldn't be allowed to continue making films in Serbia under Milošević. Those fears didn't turn out to be unfounded as his attempts to raise funds for the film adaptation of Dušan Kovačević's 1984 theater play St. George Slays the Dragon quickly got shot down.

By 1999 Dragojević had enough of Serbia as the realization set in that he wouldn't be allowed to make films the way he wants to. He thus called on his Hollywood connections in order to once again explore his options across the pond and soon opened negotiations with Miramax as he again started to get some interest from America including a January screening of Rane at the Sundance Film Festival. In late March 1999, a week into NATO's bombing of Serbia, Dragojević boarded a bus to Budapest with his wife and their two kids and went to New York City where he had a scheduled screening of Rane organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center at the Museum of Modern Art as part of its annual 28th New Director's/New Films series. The arrival to the country that's bombing his homeland put him in an odd and uncomfortable position and he acknowledged as much in interviews. He remained in the United States, travelling across the country with Rane that had several more festival screenings (including the San Francisco International Film Festival) while simultaneously negotiating terms with Miramax.

In December 2010, Dragojević's association with Ivica Dačić's Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) was announced with the forty seven year old film director's appointment to the party's main board. Other appointees to the party's main board on the same occasion were: table tennis player Aleksandar Karakašević, LGBT activist Boris Milićević, actor Bata Živojinović, retired long distance runner and former Olympian Franjo Mihalić, and retired handballer Svetlana Kitić. In late March 2012, Dragojević's name was submitted in the 55th spot on the party's electoral 250 person list for the 2012 parliamentary elections. In addition to the SPS members, the list also included candidates from the Party of United Pensioners of Serbia (PUPS) and United Serbia (JS). Dragojević took an active part in the electoral campaign, making TV debate show and public rally appearances. The SPS PUPS JS list ended up winning 44 parliamentary seats, which meant Dragojević didn't get the deputy (MP) status in the Serbian parliament. Following the election, the coalition around the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) together with the SPS list, formed a government with Dačić as Prime Minister and Aleksandar Vučić as the First Deputy Prime Minister. However, year and a half later, Dragojević would get the MP status. Following the August 2013 cabinet reshuffle, two SPS MPs—Branko Ružić and Aleksandar Antić—resigned their parliamentary posts due to being appointed to ministerial positions in the prime minister Ivica Dačić's and deputy PM Aleksandar Vučić's reconstructed cabinet. Ružić's and Antić's vacated parliamentary positions were thus taken over by Milutin Mrkonjić and Srđan Dragojević. In January 2014, Dragojević was criticized by his cinematic collaborator Dragan Bjelogrlić over accepting the parliamentary job: "I wish he hadn't done it. That ambiance doesn't go with him at all. He's greater than all of them. The MP post is not a degrading one per se, but when I think back to Dragojević the punk rocker or back to the 1990s when he'd quite brusquely, and often brazenly, say things straight to people's faces, now he looks like a wild boar that's been tamed and placed in the parliamentary cage". In March 2017, Dragojević got kicked out of the SPS after publicly voicing support for the opposition candidate Saša Janković at the 2017 Serbian presidential election. In February 2022, Dragojević became the cultural advisor to the opposition candidate Zdravko Ponoš at the 2022 Serbian presidential election.

Dragojević was married to costume designer and visual artist Tatjana Strugar from 1988 to 2005. They have three children: daughters Irina and Eva, and son Matija.