Love and Other Crimes

Directed by Stefan Arsenijevic

Review by Rada Djurica

Young film director Stefan Arsenijevic represented Serbian film at the Zagreb Film Festival 2008 with Love and Other Crimes. In many ways, this is a typical Serbian film, capturing the generally depressive atmosphere of Serbia nowadays. Stefan grew up in New Belgrade, and New Belgrade is well known as a ghetto. People here are alienated, lonely, estranged from each other. While they were spared from the direct impact of civil war, on the other hand, there's a self-destructive tendency, and they were definitely impacted by the war. It's common in New Belgrade that people feel trapped (as I know from my own experience). This film is a Serbian/German/Austrian/Slovenian co-production and also represented Serbian film in the Berlin Film Festival.

Director Stefan Arsenijevic started his career by making a number of short films which played well at festivals. In 2003 he received a Golden Bear for the Oscar-nominated short "(A) Torsion." Love and Other Crimes is also a very complex film, just as "(A)Torsion" was, yet different from the typical Serbian film, because it is made with a touch of unusual humor and atmosphere and, yet, is depressively poetic. This, viewers will discover, is very much Arsenijevic's style. He's also supported by a fantastic crew, who help him in creating these moods (along with the fantastic casting of Milena Dravic, Vuk Kostic and Anica Dobra).

From dawn till dusk, the film follows one woman, who says goodbye to her life and the forces that cause her to steal. Through the story and the people she meets, we see the reality of her life, along with a genuine depiction of current Serbia.

Stefan Arsenijevic says about his film: "It is a mosaic of small stories, and I was improving the construction of the dramaturgy all the time. After this long process, it took me only a few days to write the final script. This was my first time working on a script for a feature-length film, and I found it very complex."