Slobodan Maksimović is a Slovenian filmmaker whose body of work covers different types and formats of cinema. He has directed three fiction features, a number of shorts, several documentaries and TV series episodes, such as the popular crime show The Cases of Inspector Vrenko. He has so far received more than 50 international awards for his work. His newest feature-length documentary Praslovan [+], about the life and career of the appreciated Slovenian singer-songwriter Zoran Predin and the legacy of his cult band Lačni Franz, has just premiered in the Open Air section of the Sarajevo Film Festival, in Maksimović’s home town.
Cineuropa: After working across different types and formats, usually in the “feel-good” key, you decided to make a serious “rockumentary”. How come?
Slobodan Maksimović: I’ll use the words of Zoran Predin here. He once stated that his numerous colleagues took him way too seriously. That could also be said about our “rockumentary”, but I like the expression you used and I’m glad that you took it as something serious. It portrays the career of one rock artist who did his work and made his music in different periods of the Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav society and system. Also, we should not underestimate “feel good” – if something seems lighthearted, it doesn’t mean it can’t be serious and critical.
-What do Lačni Franz and Zoran Predin mean to you, personally?
-For me, Yugoslavia was the third rock-and-roll super-power in the world, just behind the USA and the UK. Thanks to great music editors on radio and television, we were lucky to listen to great music and fantastic lyrics in our own language. That is how I came to Lačni Franz and Zoran, and they enchanted me with his unusual voice and their fantastic rhythms and guitar riffs.
-What is their role in a wider scope, whether Slovenian, Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav, and through time?
-From my point of view, it is very big. He was kind of “Shakespearian” in that way. It was hard, almost impossible to criticise the power in Yugoslavia at the late 1970s or early 80s, so he deftly did that through some “love” songs, using the associative poetic language that many couldn’t understand. He presented an alternative to it, and his style of confronting the system is still fresh today. Let’s not fool ourselves that it’s easier to be critical of the power today. Censorship is still here, but it comes in a more attractive packaging. Because of that, Zoran and artists like him are of great importance because they strive to make society better and more just.
-Is the song “Praslovan”, after which you named your film, really the one signature song for Predin and his poetic style, or is that your particular understanding?
-If you ask the majority of his fans, they will say it is. From my point of view, it was an ideal title: short and intriguing. By the way, “Praslovan” is not just a melodic, emotive song. When you start to analyse the lyrics, you will see that the context is much wider and it could be applied to different peoples of the world and different systems they live in.
-Was it hard to find interlocutors and to get them to open up and share anecdotes, some of them not very flattering? What was Zoran’s position? Did he co-operate?
-Everybody accepted to talk about Zoran with pleasure and they were pretty open from the start. Predin helped me a lot because I would have had a hard time rounding up all the people he collaborated with during the 46 years of his career. My collaboration with him was exceptional. He never hid anything, nor conditioned me regarding how the film should look. Everything he stands for in his songs, he applied to our relationship.
-Whose idea was it to have the museum, serving as the film’s centrepiece? Does Zoran Predin deserve to have his own museum in the real life?
-It was my idea. I think that both of us are spirited people with a good sense of humour, so that device for presenting the facts about Zoran’s life seemed ideal to me. About his own museum, now isn’t the right rime for such a thing because he’s still active and full of ideas, but in the future, definitely. Mind you, not just about him! It would be lovely to have a huge rock-and-roll museum here.