All that was shown in this film really happened” – says Lazar Ristovski – “but I wanted to raise the film a foot above the ground and charge it with a taste of surreal and poetic. Why? Because the audience today is much to burdened by the reality of life (especially in Yugoslavia) and it needs an embelished image of the world relying on the romantic passion, emotions, lust, poetics, chivalry, readiness to play games and tollerance.
All the characters in the film – regardless of their social, educational or cultural background – are selfaware and allow themselves to ponder on large issues like life itself, love, survival, existence, death, the endless circle, the passage of life and the imperfect nature of Mankind. They are not afraid to show their true feelings and true colors. The lead character goes one step further: he is not even afraid of death.
Script and Director: Lazar Ristovski
Director of photography: Milorad Glusica
Scenery: Milenko Jeremić
Costume designer: Boris Čakširan
Sound: Nenad Vukadinović
Editor: Petar Putniković
Composer: Srdjan Jacimović
Mask designer: Radica Todorović
Executive producer: Petar Ristić
Producer: Lazar Ristovski
Cast:
Lazar Ristovski. Radmila Sogoljeva (UKR), Dragan Nikolić, Velimir-Bata Živoinović, Danilo – Bata Stojković, Renata Ulmanski. Bogdan Diklić, Danica Ristovski, Branislav Popović, Branimir Brstina, Nikola Kojo, Zoran Cvijanović, Jovan Ristovski, Slobodan-Boda Ninković, Bojana Maljević, Katarina Gojković, Sonja Kolačarić, Zdena Hurtecakova (Ceska), Milana Vranešević, Nebojša Milovanović, Andrej Sepetkovski, Nenad Stojmenović
FESTIVALS AND AWARDS
1999.
12.-23. May | Semaine Internationale de la Critique, Cannes Film Festival, France
29. June – 4.July | Festival XXI Secolo Reggio Calabria
15.-29. August | Edinburgh International Film Festival
24.-28. August | “L’arte per la pace: Settimana dei Balcani” Gibelina Italy awarded for “The Art Film”
27.August | G.September Montreal
3.-10. October | Panorama Of European Cinema Athens won Best Film of the European Competition
6.-21. October | Chicago International Film Festival, USA
7.-19. October | Warsaw
14.-21 .October | Fundacio Municipal de Cine, Mostra de Valencia won Best Photography, Milorad Glusica
30.October – 4.November | Festival du cinema international en Abitibi- Temiscamingue, Quebec, Canada Screening in Paris for Grand Films Classiques
26. November | Author’s Film Festival, Belgrade “Positive”, award for the whole authorial conribution in the film “The White Suit”
27.November-3.December | Europa Cinema & TV International Film Festival Viareggio, Italy
30.November-8.December | International Film Festival Bratislava, Slovakia
2000.
13.-24. January | The Nortel Palm Springs International Film Festival
15.-22.January | AIpe Adria Film Festival, Trieste
25.-30.January | Max Ophuls Preis Film Festival, Germany
4.- 13. February | Palm Beach International Film Festival, USA
10-19 March | Skopje Film Festival, Macedonia
31.March – 7.April | Charleroi
31.March – 15.April | Singapore
19.-30.April | Brasilia
31.May-4. June | International Film Festival Innsbruck, Austria
2.-6.June | V Festival of European Co-production, Sofia, Bulgaria
23-29 June | International Film Festival Of Festivals, St Petersburg
2001.
16-21. January | Tromso International Film Festival, Norway
Film “The White Suit” was Yugoslav candidate for US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award (Oscar) for the year 1999.
DIRECTOR
Lazar Ristovski
/actor/director/producer/writer
Member of the European Film Academy
Lazar Ristovski is one of the most prominent Serbian actors. He has played in over 80 movies and directed 2. Lazar Ristovski is the founder and CEO of the production house Zillion film. With Lazar Ristovski in charge, Zillion film has produced and co-produced 17 feature-length films in twenty-three years, the films that participated in all major world festivals. We have been in Kan, Berlin, Toronto, and won prestigious awards. Our movies have been sold around the world. Lazar Ristovski was the leading actor in Kusturica’s cult film Underground which won the Golden Palm.
As a producer, Lazar Ristovski has always been bold and innovative. He has always been open to new ideas and has given a chance to young directors. As an actor, he has an impressive biography and he is an acclaimed producer. His debut film, The White Suit was screened as part of The International Critics’ Week program in Cannes.
- 2019. LEECHES
- 2018. WHAT COUNTRY IS THIS – The role of Karlo
- 2018. KING PETAR I – The role of King Petar I Karadjordjevic
- 2018. THE MAN WHO BOUGHT THE MOON – the role of Taneddu
- 2018. NEVERENDING PAST – A man looking for a dead son (segment “III story”)
- 2010-2017. THE VILLAGE IS BURNING, GRANDMA IS COMBING (TV series) – The role of Jovan
- 2016. DRIVER’S DIARY – the role of Ilja
- 2016. WORLD CHAMPIONS – the role of Tito
- 2016. AUF KURZE DISTANZ – uloga Aco Gorić
- 2016. ON THE OTHER SIDE/Zrinko Ogresta/lead role
- 2015 PANTA DRAŠKIC PRICE OF HONOR – the role of Panta Draskic
- 2015 FOR THE KING AND ABROAD – the role of Djeneral Mirkovic
- 2014. November Man- Roger Donaldson
- 2011. The White Lions by Lazar Ristovski lead role
- 2009 HONEYMOONS – by Goran Paskaljević
- 2009 SAINT GEORGE SHOOT THE DRAGON – by Srđan Dragojević – lead role
- 2009 DEVIL’S TOWN – by Vladimir Paskaljevic
- 2007 S.O.S. – Slobodan Sijan – lead role
”More” ”Close”
FANTA u Rimu.
- 2011. The White Lions – by Lazar Ristovski
- 1999 “The White Suit”
- Premijera filma je bila na Filmskom festivalu u Kanu u okviru programa Nedelja kritike.
- “Belo Odelo ” je bio jugoslovenski kandidat za nagradu američke Akademija za filmsku umetnost i nauku.
- Dobio je nagradu za Umetnički film –Gibelina-Italija.
- Na festivalu, Panorama evropskog filma, u Atini osvojio je nagradu kao Najbolji film u evropskoj konkurenciji.
- Na festivalu Mostra de Valensia-dobio je nagradu za najbolju fotografiju-Milorad Glušica.
- 1998 “Movie Star”- Short feature film. (22`)
- 2016. “ON THE OTHER SIDE”- Zrinko Ogresta-coproducer
- 2015 “Narodni heroj Ljiljan Vidić”-Ivan Goran Vitez-coproducer
- 2013 “Sveštenikova deca“ – Vinko Brešan – koproducent
- 2011 “The White Lions” – by Lazar Ristovski
- 2009 “Saint George shoots the Dragon” – Srdjan Dragojević
- 2006 “The Optimist’s” – Goran Paskaljević
- 2006 “Tomorrow Morning” – Oleg Novković
- 2006 “Tailor’s secret” – Miloš Avramović
- 2004 “Midwinter Night`s Dream” – Goran Paskaljević
- 2004 “Falling into Paradise” – Miloš Radović
- 2002 “Little Night Music” – Director-Dejan Zečević
- 2001 “Boomerang” - Dragan Marinković- Berlinale-Panorama
- 1999 “The White Suit”- Lazar Ristovski – Semaine de la Critique, Cannes Film Festival.
- The white suit
- Kako sam dobio Oskara
- Simple stories
Press
“THE YUGOSLAV CINEMA HAS MADE US A GIFT THIS YEAR”…
The Yugoslav cinema has made us a gift this year in spite of the fact that the annual production has been less than a doyen films. After the great success of Emir Kusturica’s “White Cat Black Cat” (Silver Lion in Venice in 1998) and Goran Paskaljivic’s “Powder Keg” (Best European Film / FIPRESCI 1998) we have before us “The White Suit” by Lazar Ristovski who is producer, writer, director and lead character. Listing these names there is a sense of a kindred spirit. It is a logical evolution, after the triumph in the role of Crni in Kusturica’s “Underground” (Golden Palm / Cannes 1995) and the striking and unforgettable performance in the “Powder Keg”. As a mature actor, Ristovski belongs to the world elite of actors – not only in Belgrade where he is revered like Depardieu in Paris. ”More” This time he plays sergeant major Savo Tiodorovic, aged 45, a bachelor that writes poetry for his own pleasure, reads classics and dreams of an acting career. Having clearly defined himself with an off-camera inner dialogue, sufficient to give us his main characteristics, the hero surfaces as a dreamer hovering above memories and wishes, troubled by the dilemma: “to stay true to the past or to turn to the future”. The opening monologue stresses: “Soldiers like myself wear camouflage uniforms to avoid being seen by the enemy, but lamentably friends cannot se us either!”. This witty paradox offers a tragicomic, bittersweet flavor to the entire movie, taking us back to the golden era of the Yugoslav film with Slobodan Šijan’s “Ko to tamo peva” as the archetype. In this film the lead character is on a train heading to his destination: his mother’s funeral. The set is a bit shifted: the unity of place – a train pulled by a steam locomotive as if it had been deliberately brought back by the author with a time machine; the unity of time: everything happens in two days, the first being the day of the finale of the Soccer World Championships in France; unity of action: the inevitable voyage confronts our hero with numerous incidental but quintessential characters, some of which are not at all appealing to us. The monstrously struck balance – thanks to the firm structure – between contradictory elements, the challenges that introduce comical scenes almost venturing into gags, a light sense of paranoia, the fear of the invisible enemy and the irresistible need for immediate fulfillment of all desires, the thirst that can be quenched only by true feelings. Ever since Fellini we have seldom had the opportunity to see such a successful merger of surreal and real, especially in two scenes that the “great masestro” would have gladly signed: the fish tank striptease scene when the little siren swims in a shanty town bordello and the one when the lead character says “I love you” in a hundred languages thus creating the magic which synthesizes westerns movies and old fashioned romantic drama. “The White Suit” is a film in favor of peace, telling us clearly that this world of ours is a great medley and that is quite all right. ”Close”
Jean Roy
Gallery
''WHITE SUIT'' THE NOVEL
The White Suit a short novel by Lazar Ristovski, was written based on the script from the homonymous film, and represents a finale of a major project d’auteur, quite unique in the cultural environment in our country. Producer, scriptwriter, director and main character of the film The White Suit, Lazar Ristovski also tried his hand at writing showing, in a perfect way, that where talent and high professionalism are a prerogative, versatility need not be an obstacle in creating works of art that possess certain artistic value. Similar examples are hard to find here, and globally actor and writer Sam Sheppard might be quoted as an approximate and very charming reference.
In the novel The White Suit, just like in the film script, the proven recipe used with success for nearly two decades in our films and theaters was chosen – you put together different characters in one place: a train, a bus or an underground and then you let them speak and operate – something is bound to come out of it. This scheme provided Lazar Ristovski with firm ground for evolving the story of a little man – expandable element in the framework of local and world history. The writers view of the world, a punning setting on wheels, is backed in the novel by the melancholic-comical meditations of the lead character, with his naive considerations on the fate of the world in which he also has a small, unimportant role, and, above all his courage to play out this role to the end, whatever it is.
. ”More” The quick alternation of tragic and comical images dominated by elements of melodrama and fantasy, street humor based on gags and witty, but also on “delayed effect” dialogues, the geographic mentality with all its fascination and horrifying sorrow, all this has been packed – with more or less success – into the ancient cliché’ based on the belief that man sees his life flash by like film scenes in the moment of dying. Hence, “two days in two seconds” lived by sergeant major Sava comprise all the opposing elements that make an average human life: love and death, joy and sorrow, weddings and funerals. Brilliant episodes have been reached in several points of the novel: the encounter with the brother in Flat Village, Carmen at the train compartment door, or the Nušic-like scene with the captain and the telegram. The episode with the beautiful Romanian woman at the train window, while the protagonists stares at her behind and meditates on the human philosophy and its effects, is an outstanding quote of the unmatched Rabelais. ”Close”
Part of the introductory note by Ljiljana Djurdjic
OSCAR CANDIDATES 1999.
- Argentina, „Manuelita,“ Manuel Garcia Ferre, director
- Austria, „Northern Skirts,“ Barbara Albert, director
- Belgium, „Rosetta,“ Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, directors
- Bhutan, „The Cup,“ Khyentse Norbu, director
- Brazil, „Orfeu,“ Carlos Diegues, director
- Canada, „Set Me Free,“ Lea Pool, director
- China, „Lover’s Grief over the Yellow River,“ Feng Xiao Ning, director
- Colombia, „Time Out,“ Sergio Cabrera, director
- Croatia, „Red Dust,“ Zrinko Ogresta, director
- Czech Republic, „Return of the Idiot,“ Sasa Gedeon, director
- Denmark, „Mifune,“ Soren Kragh-Jacobsen, director
- Finland, „The Tough Ones,“ Aleksi Makela, director
- France, „East-West,“ Regis Wargnier, director
- Georgia, „Here Comes the Dawn,“ Zaza Urushadze, director
- Germany, „Aimee & Jaguar,“ Max Farberbock, director
- Greece, „From the Edge of the City,“ Constantinos Giannaris, director
- Hong Kong, „Ordinary Heroes,“ Ann Hui, director
- Hungary, „The Lord’s Lantern in Budapest,“ Miklos Jancso, director
- Iceland, „The Honour of the House,“ Gudny Halldorsdottir, director
- India, „Earth,“ Deepa Mehta, director
- Indonesia, „Sri,“ Marselli Sumarno, director
- Iran, „The Colours of Paradise,“ Majid Majidi, director
- Israel, „Yana’s Friend,“ Arik Kaplun, director
- Italy, „Not of this World,“ Giuseppe Piccioni, director
- Japan, „Railroad Man,“ Yasuo Furuhata, director
- Lebanon, “Around the Pink House,” Khalil Joreige & Joana Hadjithomas, directors
- Mexico, “El Coronel no tiene quien le escriba,” Arturo Ripstein, director
- Nepal, “Caravan,” Eric Valli, director
- The Netherlands, “Scratches in the Table,” Ineke Houtman, director
- Norway, “The Prompter,” Hilde Heier, director
- Peru, “Captain Pantoja and the Special Services,” Francisco J. Lombardi, director
- The Philippines, “The Kite,” Gil M. Portes, director
- Poland, “Pan Tadeusz,” Andrzej Wajda, director
- Portugal, “The Mutants,” Teresa Villaverde, director
- Romania, “The Famous Paparazzo“, Nicolae Margineanu, director
- Russia, “Moloch,” Alexander Sokurov, director
- Slovakia, “All My Loved Ones,” Matej Minac, director
- Spain, “All About My Mother,” Pedro Almodovar, director
- Sweden, “Under the Sun,” Colin Nutley, director
- Switzerland, “Beresina, or The Last Days of Switzerland,” Daniel Schmid, director
- Tajikistan, “Luna Papa,” Bakhtiar Khudojnazarov, director
- Taiwan, “March of Happiness,” Lin Cheng-sheng, director
- Turkey, “Mrs. Salkim’s Diamonds,” Tomris Gintlioglu, director
- United Kingdom (Wales), “Solomon and Gaenor,” Paul Morrison, director
- Venezuela, “Glue Sniffer,” Elia Schneider, director
- Vietnam, “Three Seasons,” Tony Bui, director
- Yugoslavia, “The White Suit,” Lazar Ristovski, director.