Lazar Stojanović
Biography
Lazar Stojanović was a student at the Belgrade Academy of Dramatic Arts in the early 1970s when he made his thesis film, Plastic Jesus. As Josip Broz Tito’s government experienced radical shifts, the film was confiscated as subversive, Stojanovć was thrown in jail along with other student reformist leaders and artists, and scenes were redacted. It was not until 1990 that the film was released.
Known For & Full Filmography3 Titles
Movie - 2012, 2h 15m • as Samuel Bronston
The story behind and around famous American director Nicholas Ray's 1960s stay in SFR Yugoslavia. The celebrated director who was the toast of Hollywood only a decade earlier having made Rebel Without a Cause has fallen on hard times and is now desperately trying to re-establish his spiraling film career. On the other hand, his powerful host, Avala Film director and former Yugoslav secret service operative Ratko Dražević, is dreaming big dreams - he is trying to establish a 'Hollywood behind the Iron Curtain' of sorts.
Movie - 2009, 2h 15m • as Ratiborov otac
A mixture of documentary and fiction examines the new god of Capitalism offered to the Serbs with the ending of state socialism. We look at a number of strikes in Belgrade during the late 2000s and these introduce us to several characters playing themselves. Employees dressed in American football helmets and pads square up with employers' heavies in their bullet-proof vests, resulting in explosive situations. A visit from the Russian tycoon's representative and vice president Joe Biden's arrival further complicates the proceedings.
Movie - 2007, 2h 15m • as Himself
Through the conversation with Yugoslav film authors and excerpts from their films, this documentary film tells a story of a film phenomenon and censorship, and its focus is, in fact, a painful epoch of Yugoslav film called “a Black Wave”, which was the most important and artistically strongest period of Yugoslav film industry, created in the sixties and buried in the early seventies by means of ideological and political decisions. The film tells a great “thriller” story of the ideological madness which characterised the totalitarian psychology having left multiple consequences felt up to our very days. It stresses similarities between totalitarian regimes defending their taboos on the example of the persecution of the most important Yugoslav film authors. Those film authors have, however, made world careers and inspired many later authors. The film is the beginning of a debt pay-off to the most significant Yugoslav film authors.