The Parade () is a 2011 Serbian comedy-drama film, written and directed by Srđan Dragojević and released on 31 October 2011. The film, which deals with LGBT rights issues in Serbia, features footage of the 2010 Belgrade gay pride parade.
Plot A group of gay activists are trying to organize a pride parade in Belgrade. Among them is Mirko Dedijer, a struggling theater director who mostly makes a living by planning lavish and kitschy wedding ceremonies. Organizing such a parade is no easy task in Serbia as evidenced by the violence at the 2001 attempt. Now, almost a decade later, the situation is not much better – nationalist and right wing groups pose just as much threat particularly as the police refuse to secure the event. Mirko's effeminate boyfriend Radmilo, a veterinarian, is not as political and is content with keeping a low profile. Although the two try to live discreetly, both experience abuse from the homophobic majority.
In parallel, we meet Miško Drašković a.k.a. Limun, a macho Serbian veteran of the Yugoslav Wars in his mid-to-late forties. No stranger to criminal activities, divorced Limun operates a judo club that doubles as a bodyguard agency (whose clientele mostly consists of nouveau riche businessmen and female turbo-folk singers) while dating Biserka, a younger, low-brow ditzy trophy girlfriend who runs a beauty parlour. His son from a previous marriage, Vuk, works in an auto repair shop and is a member of a fringe right-wing skinhead group that attacks gay people.
The paths of the two couples cross. Radmilo performs a life-saving operation on Limun's beloved bulldog, the victim of a drive-by shooting that served as a warning to its master. Simultaneously, Biserka seeks out Mirko with a view of hiring him to plan hers and Limun's wedding. The eventual meeting of the two couples goes horribly wrong with Limun's violent and homophobic side emerging, which serves as the final catalyst for Mirko to leave Serbia for Canada (leaving Radmilo behind) and for Biserka to leave Limun.
Biserka decides to end contact with Limun but calls Mirko to apologize. Radmilo picks up the phone and, learning of the circumstances of Biserka and Limun, sees an opportunity and formulates a plan. He then shows up at Limun's agency/judo club offering Mirko's services in organizing his wedding party in return for Limun's personnel securing the gay parade. Limun reluctantly accepts, and, though Biserka returns to him, his club staff refuse to protect homosexuals, partly due to the likely reaction of their community. Seeing no other option, Limun decides to contact former wartime adversaries, most of them who engaged in petty smuggling across the borders during the Yugoslav wars. Limun and Radmilo embark on a recruiting trip all over ex-Yugoslavia.
They manage to sign up for their mission: Roko (45) a Croat war veteran who now runs a kafana, Halil (50) a Bosniak who owns a video rental parlour, and Azem (45) an Albanian from Kosovo who makes a living by selling drugs stolen via homing birds, mostly to the US troops stationed there.
When Limun's attempt to train the gay activists in martial arts fails, the skinheads refuse to be bought off and the police decline a bribe to protect the parade, the tiny group is attacked and brutalized, with Mirko getting killed before the police makes an intervention. However, thanks to this courage and effort, the film ends by celebrating a successful parade the following year protected by several thousand cops.
Cast Nikola Kojo as Limun Miloš Samolov as Radmilo Hristina Popović as Biserka, Limun's girlfriend Goran Jevtić as Mirko, Radmilo's partner Goran Navojec as Roko Dejan Aćimović as Halil Zubović Toni Mihajlovski as Azem Nataša Marković as Lenka, gay activist as Đorđe, gay activist Relja Popović as Vuk, Limun's son from a previous marriage Radoslav Milenković as Kecman, corrupt police inspector Mira Stupica as grannie Olga Marko Nikolić as Bogdan, Radmilo's father Branimir Popović as Zvonce Uroš Đurić as Kačamak Milan "Strongman" Jovanović as Afrika Milan Marić as Rešetka Bojan Navojec as Žuko, Roko's brother Saša Petrović as Ibro Anita Mančić as Tamara, Limun's ex-wife as Boro, assassin for hire Mirjana Đurđević as Radica, Boro's wife
Production According to its writer and director Dragojević, the film was conceived in summer 2001 while he watched the footage of the violence at the attempted gay pride parade in Belgrade. He wrote the first screenplay draft for Parada in 2004 before coming back to it in 2007 after failing to secure financing for his other film project titled 1999. In that time he experimented with framing the screenplay within different genres, but eventually decided that politically incorrect comedy is the best platform to tell this story. He penned the final version of the script over three weeks during summer 2008 while on vacation on the island of Mljet.
By fall 2009, Dragojević was ready to start shooting with the original plan being to shoot the parade scenes at the actual 20 September 2009 gay pride parade in Belgrade that ended up getting called-off due to security concerns. The shooting actually began a year later at the 2010 parade and continued in late March 2011 on locations in Croatia (Pag, Rab, and Obrovac) and Macedonia (Bitola).
According to one of its producers Biljana Prvanović, Parada cost €1.3 million to make and its funding came from European Council's Eurimages fund, Croatian Audio-Visual Center (HAVC), Serbian Ministry of Culture, Slovenian Ministry of Culture, Macedonian Ministry of Culture, and embassies of Germany, the Netherlands, and France in Belgrade as well as Serbian companies Dunav Osiguranje, Prva Srpska Televizija, and Serbia Broadband. Dragojević complained in interviews that over hundred companies in Serbia turned him down for funding due to not wanting to be associated with a gay-themed project.
Listed as the film's producers are: Biljana Prvanović of the Delirium Films from Serbia, Igor Nola from the Croatian Audio-Visual Center (HAVC), Eva Rohrman from Slovenia's Forum Film, Vladimir Anastasov from Macedonia's Sektor Film, and Mike Downey from the UK's Film and Music Entertainment (F&ME).
Director's statement
Release and box office General theatrical release After the media screening on 28 October 2011, Parada premiered in Belgrade's Sava Centar on Monday, 31 October and in Serbian movie theaters from 1 November. Premiere in Novi Sad was held on November the 1st and in Niš on 18 November. In Montenegro, premiere took place in Podgorica on 16 November.
In late January 2012, Serbian government's Ministry of Education and Science (headed by cabinet minister Žarko Obradović and vice-minister Zoran Kostić, both from the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS)) sent out a notice to school boards across Serbia about free screenings of Parada for principals and teachers of elementary and secondary schools, essentially recommending the movie as a work that promotes tolerance. The idea initiated by the movie's director Dragojević was to organize free screenings (the expense was covered by the film distributor and movie theater owners) for principals and teachers and then leave it up to their discretion whether they want to take their pupils to the cinema at a cut price as part of overall education on homosexuality. Dragojević managed to get the theater owners to cover the free screenings for principals and teachers because according to Zoran Cvetanović, the owner of Art vista theaters "the potential of a number of teenagers seeing the film, even at a cut price, meant increased business for us, especially since that demographic was noticeably absent during Paradas commercial theatrical run". Some, such as Miodrag Sokić, the president of Belgrade's gymnasia forum, criticized the fact that the Ministry decided to support someone's private commercial project: "In the last four years (since this ruling coalition has been in power), no other movie got a recommendation from the Ministry in this manner. Supporting a movie, even as an extracurricular activity, is meddling in the school curriculum and that is serious stuff. I don't blame the movie's director Dragojević, but I really have a problem with the Ministry's recommendation".
In March and April 2012, Serbian police arrested several individuals suspected of participating in online copyright infringement and illegal distribution of film copies.
The premieres in Bosnia and Herzegovina were respectively held, only in Republika Srpska entity, on 7 November in Bijeljina and on 10 December in Banja Luka,
In Croatia, premieres were held in December – December 12 in Zagreb, December 13 in Rijeka and December 14 in Split. For a time there were discussions over whether the film will be shown with subtitles in Croatia, but in the end the distributor decided against it. Much like in Serbia, the Croatian theatrical audience also responded in great numbers. After its first day of general release in the country on seven screens across Croatia, Parada was seen by 1,500 people, which according to the local distributor is on par with Hollywood blockbuster openings in Croatia. Initially projected to sell more than 60,000 admission tickets in the country, which would be more than all Croatian films combined sell recently in a single year, Parada ended up selling more than 150,000 thus overtaking 2005's Što je muškarac bez brkova? at the second spot of the Croatian all-time theater list (first is still 1996's Kako je počeo rat na mom otoku with more than 200,000). Final figure of tickets sold reached almost 170,000. In mid March the film got refused from Visia cinema in Dubrovnik that's managed by the Catholic Church's local diocese. Since that particular movie theater is the only operational one in the entire city, Parada effectively got banned from the city of Dubrovnik. Explaining the decision, Mate Uzinić, the bishop of Dubrovnik, listed two reasons for refusal of Parada – first, that it promotes sin and homosexual lifestyle, and secondly, that "it present a view of the Homeland War that the Dubrovnik Diocese can't get behind".
In Macedonia the premiere was held in Skopje on 16 December, followed by Bitola on the 17th. In Slovenia, the premiere was held in Ljubljana on December 20. By early March 2012, the film got a 'golden ribbon' in Slovenia for 25,000 admission tickets sold in the country's theaters. So far only Slovenian productions or co-productions were able to reach the figure, the last one being 2001's No Man's Land.
On 25 January, the film started playing in theaters in Bosnia and Herzegovina's other entity, Federacija BiH, though no special event premieres were held there. The movie soon reached the 18,000 admission tickets figure.
From 2 March, the film went into theatrical release in Austria, following a premiere at Vienna's UCI Kinowelt Millennium City multiplex.
Festival circuit The film was accepted for the 2012 Berlinale's Panorama programme as the only film from former Yugoslavia out of twenty that applied for the festival. At the festival, the movie's producers struck a distribution deal for the French market with Sophie Dulac Distribution as well as a distribution deal for the Bulgarian market. The film had a premiere showing in Berlin on 13 February 2012, as well as two more press screenings. Parada received the Panorama Audience Award for feature film among 23,500 votes. It also won the Siegessäule (German LGBT magazine) readers' award as well as the Ecumenical Jury (representing the Protestant and Catholic Churches' international film organisations – Interfilm and Signis) special mention.
Full list of international festivals and awardsBerlinale Film FestivalPanorama Audience Award Fiction Film, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury,