Film “A Gram. A Kilogram.A Ton” in Monte Royal Pictures production and directed by Janko Baljak within the EU-funded project “Strengthening Media Freedom in Serbia,” has been at the final stage of production after a year of work. It is expected to be broadcast in February 2015.
The film intends to tell a story about mechanisms of organised recruiting of juveniles for a very lucrative “business” such as is trade in light and heavy drugs in Serbia. Thirteen young people the authors have spoken to, who are serving their sentences for this crime, are telling a story about the entrance into that vicious circle, and about how difficult is to find the way out of it.
While learning about their destinies, through interviews with experts from these areas, and through necessary role-played reconstructions and with carefully selected documentary and archive papers – the authors made the puzzle of a very hard topic.
“With the experience of the author who had that famous film flash “See You in the Obituary”, which has been somewhere current even twenty years later, I have accepted an idea to go back into the story about organised crime. It required far more courage and curiosity for a story about availability of drugs to juveniles, since we pass by certain things everyday, but we turn our blind eye to them consciously or unconsciously. The lessons learned in the research were more than shocking,” director Baljak said.
“To me, a parent of three daughters of critical age, an additional defeat was to learn that average drug consumer has been ever younger – the age of an average drug consumer went down to only 14. However, the information that pinned me down was that the youngest registered heroin user in Lazarevac is only 12. I looked for the motivation and director’s vision for this topic unfortunately not for long,” he added.
During the research on this project, with running title of “A Gram”, the authors faced three logical periods of organised trade in narcotics – and according to style, behaviour and consequences.
They realised that the only possible title could be “A Gram. A Kilogram. A Ton”, since they were following the evolution of the topic in this region for the past four decades. It is a painful story about the collapse of a country, collapse of middle-class population, moral values, and everything that citizens of Serbia faced in a difficult transition which is still on.
At the beginning of each story there is a word corruption, since there is no organised trade in narcotics in any country without mentioning that word. Therefore, middle name of the film, whichever nick name they give to it, is corruption.
The project has been in preparation for a year, and expected projection is in February 2015.
Production: Monte Royal Pictures International, with the support of European Union Delegation and Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Serbia.
Director and screenplay: Janko Baljak
Director of photography: Tatjana Krstevski
Film editing: Aleksandra Milovanović
Executive producer: Bojan Maljević
Producer and editor: Bojana Maljević
