Zeljko Mirkovic: I will Marry the Whole Village
If you think you have read about films by Mirkovic from Serbia before, you are right! He has developed a special touch in documentary filmmaking and he chooses subjects that appeal not only to a local audience but also internationally for tv. Like this new one from the productive director and producer, an edited quote from his site:
”The village of Matejevac, in the south of Serbia, has over 300 unmarried men (almost one third of the men living there). The village is only a ten-minute drive from the city of Niš with the population of around 400,000 citizens, but the women there do not want to live in the countryside… Peca, an unmarried accordion player, has decided to take the matter into his own hands and to carry out a great project aiming at marrying the young and old by attracting women to the village. And to get married himself in the end.”
The film is full of humour, Peca is a sympathethic character, and nice music is the element that binds the story together with a classic storyteller, who addresses the camera directly. As do the bachelors when they make their small promotion video. There is a bit of amateur comedy in the film when Peca goes around to do publicity for his mission. It is all together light-hearted and joyful to watch. They get together, the men and the women, they have fun, they sing and dance, and drink… and Peca, a text at the end says, continues to matchmake.
Serbia, 2010, 57 mins.
