Mihajlo Jevtic: Four Passports

For someone who for 15 years regularly have been visiting Belgrade, and who have been traveling Serbia South and North with local friends, it is upfront very interesting to see a film made by and about a man, film director Mihajlo Jevtic, who in first person and in a unpretentious, both humourous and sad, typically Serbian, I would say, of course a total simplification, tells the story of his young life in several countries as the title says, and yet at the same place, a place he is to leave to live in another country, where the working and thus material living conditions are better. I have met these considerations among younger Serbians again and again, so nothing new thematically for me.

So – contrary to the text of the serious and depressive synopsis on the website and on facebook, link below – I was happy to watch a film, on the background of the history of a country Yugoslavia that fell apart, full of warm feelings, a family film, whose members (love the father of the director) remember and reflect and get happy when grandchildren (from the side of the sister) arrive.

The film lives best, when father and son are together, playing with the camera, looking at s-8 material from their holidays in Rovinj, Croatia, a place the director Mihajlo goes back to – to bring back moving images to his family. In between the film brings some animation, which does not really bring extra value to a personal documentary that was nice and sweet to watch.

Serbia, Croatia, Germany, 2016, 83 mins.

www.fourpassports.com

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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