~ Milica Puric ~
Vuk Rsumovic, director of the movie “No One’s Child’
“I could not believe that in 20th century, in the middle of ’80s in the forests of Bosnia and Herzegovina, former Yugoslavia, among wild animals and wolves, hunters have found a wild boy who was later brought to Belgrade for socialization. That story haunted me from the moment I heard about it and I became obsessed with it. I knew I had to make a movie about this boy,” said Vuk Rsumovic, screenwriter and movie director about his first movie, “No One’s Child.”
His cinematic debut won the primary Audience Award at the famous Venice Film Festival in 2015 in the selection of International Week of Film Critics. The award was given based on the votes of all who watched the Venice Film Festival, and it opened the door to Rsumovic’s film. After the festival, “No One’s Child” got 35 more important film awards.
The official poster for the movie “No One’s Child”
“Venice awards have a special weight because the Venice Festival is a prestigious festival,” Vuk said. “It paved the way for my film. When you win a prize at the Venice Film Festival, everyone becomes interested in your film — festival organizers, audience, critics. That award shows that the film is worth watching. After that festival, we received many awards from critics and audiences, and each of them has its own beauty, but if I have to choose which one I like the most (after the Venice award), that would be the Best Director award I got in Russia at the International Film Festival Zerkalo (The Mirror), named after famous movie director Andrei Tarkovsky,” Vuk explained.
The beginning of the movie – Denis Muric in leading role of a wild boy
“No One’s Child” is based on the fascinating true story of a wild boy (played by Denis Muric) who was found by local hunters in the mountains of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the middle of the 1980s. The boy grew up among wild animals and wolves and didn’t know to talk, eat and walk as a human, only as an animal. He acted like a little wild beast. He was sent to Belgrade, at that time the capital of Yugoslavia, to the institution for abandoned children for social and civilized adaptation. Contrary to predictions, the boy, who randomly was named Haris, began to grow rapidly and make friends.
At the beginning wild boy was unable to speak or even walk on two legs
“I heard about this story from my wife seven or eight years ago,” Mano said. “She is a theater director, and at that time she had a nongovernment organization that used to work with a group of juvenile delinquents at the orphanage Vasa Stajic in Belgrade. There she met one of the teachers who told her this story as an anecdote from his professional life. Then she told the story to me and I became fascinated by it. From the very beginning, I knew that I have to make the movie about it. I could not believe that in Europe in the late 20th century, hunters found a boy who grew up with the wolves. Then I started exploring. First I met the teacher from the orphanage, Dragan Rolovic, who has worked with a wild boy. He told me everything he knew about him. Then I started coming more and more often to the orphanage in order to familiarize myself with the institution where abandoned children live.”
The sad scene from the orphanage: Haris (left) and his best friend Zika (Pavle Cemerikic)
Vuk Rsumovic said with a smile that a long time ago some directors warned their colleagues that they must not make their first movie with children and animals. “And I had both of them in my first movie. But I was very careful. I wouldn’t give to Denis Muric, who played a wild boy, the script in advance, only when he came on the set. I did not want him to practice anything at home because I would have more trouble to teach him differently from what he had learned, and that would kill spontaneity. And it paid off. He is an extraordinary actor. I found him on the set director Goran Radovanovic movie “Enclave,” where he also played a significant role. Previously I tried to find my leading actor all around. I have visited many schools, but when I saw him I knew immediately I had found my actor! His role is very challenging: In the beginning, he is like a little animal, he behaves like a little beast, but at the end of the film he is a socialized young man. Denis was excellent in all of this, at all stages of filming,” the director said.
The scene from the movie – the wild boy needed to learn everything, even how to put his shoes on. Actors Denis Muric (left) and his ‘movie teacher’ actor Milos Timotijevic
Talking about the difficulties in the process of making a movie, Vuk Rsumovic explained this creative process took a very long time. He said he spent a lot of time researching.
“A long time ago a famous French movie director, François Truffaut, made the movie ‘Wild Child,’ and that is a similar story to this one,” Vuk Rsumovic said. “It was based on a doctor’s study, and that work is considered the first research about child psychiatry. It’s about the boy found in the wilderness of France, and that doctor began to work with him. Truffaut said that this is a topic that a man can deal with his entire life. And I really understood it by dealing with it and researching. However, since I was working on a film, at some point I had to stop researching and say, ‘It’s enough! I know what I know and what I do not know I will somehow make up,’” Rsumovic said.
Talented boy Denis Muric was phenomenal in the role of a wild boy Haris
“It’s generally hard to make a movie, not just in Serbia, but anywhere in the world,” the director said. “I realized this when I was at a fantastic writing program in the Netherlands in 2009. There were gathered authors, directors, writers from 20 countries — Great Britain, Australia, the Netherlands, Romania, the Philippines. And look, now it is the end of 2015 and I think that I am the only one of them who made a film for the last six years, although most of them live in countries where the economy is strong and in which many are involved in the film. It’s hard to make a movie, but luckily, now technology makes it possible for us to make a movie with less money, and with a great dose of enthusiasm.”
Soldiers took Haris with themselves, gave him a rifle, and he went to war. Nobody knows what happened to him later
Vuk’s film ends with the boy’s returning to the Bosnia because of bureaucratic reasons. The war in Yugoslavia just began and Haris accidentally met a group of soldiers. They took him with themselves, gave him a rifle, and he went to war. Nobody knows what happened to him later. In reality, the boy also disappeared in the middle of the war. He didn’t belong to any side and went back to his one and only family — a family of wolves. “It turned out that wolves have been more harmless and better than the people,” said this movie director whose name in Serbian means “wolf.”
~ Milica Puric ~
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SERBIAN TRANSLATION – SRPSKA VERZIJA
Beogradski reditelj Vuk Ršumović, autor filma ‘Ničije dete’
Mir medju vukovima
~ Milica Puric ~
Vuk Ršumović se poklanja publici na FIlmskom festivalu srpskih filmova u Čikagu, 2015. godine (in front of audience at Serbian Film Festival in Chicago 2015)
“Nisam mogao da verujem da je sredinom 80-ih godina prošlog veka u šumama Bosne i Hercegovine, medju vukovima, pronađen napušteni, divlji dečak koji je kasnije doveden u Beograd na socijalizaciju. Od trenutka kada sam čuo ovu priču postao sam opsednut njom i znao sam da moram da snimim film o tome”, kaze Vuk Ršumović o svom filmskom prvencu.
Njegovo kinemtografsko ostvarenje osvojilo je 2014. godine glavnu Nagradu publike na čuvenom Venecijanskom festivalu. Ta nagrada se dodeljuje za najbolji film prikazan u selekciji ‘Nedelje međunarodne filmske kritike’ (International Film Critics’ Week) i dodeljuje se na osnovu glasova svih koji su gledali film na festivalu u Veneciji. Ona je otvorila vrata Ršumovićevom flmu, a posle nje film je dobio jos 35 važnih filmskih nagrada.
Denis Murić u ulozi divljeg dečaka (The wild boy – Denis Muric)
“Nagrade sa ovog Festivala u Veneciji imaju posebnu težinu zato sto je reč o prestižnom Festivalu. Kad dobijete nagradu u Veneciji za vaš film se svi zainteresuju, pre svega festivalski organizatori i programi, a onda i svi ostali. Ta nagrada pokazuje da film vredi. Tako je naš film posle ovog Festivala dobio mnoge nagrade i od kritike i od publike i svaka od njih ima svoju lepotu. Ipak, izdvojio bih i onu koju sam dobio za režiju u Rusiji na Medjunarodnom filmskom festivalu ‘Zerkalo’ posvećenom čuvenom ruskom reditelju Andreju Tarkovskom. Ona mi je draga jer se radi o Festivalu koji prikazuje filmove koji nastavljaju put Andreja Tarkovskog”.
Scena iz filma: Denis Murić (levo), Pavle Čemerikić i Isidora Janković (Kids from the movie: Denis Muric, Pavle Cemerikic i Isidora Jankovic)
Film “Ničije dete” baziran je na fascinantnoj istinitoj priči o divljem dečaku (u filmu ga igra Denis Murić) koga su sredinom 80-ih godina prošlog veka pronašli lovci među vukovima u šumi u planinama Bosne i Hercegovine. Dečak nije znao da govori, išao je na četiri noge i ponašao se kao mala divlja zver. Poslat je u Beograd u dom za nezbrinutu decu da se socializuje. Suprotno predviđanjima, dečak, koji nasumično dobija ime Haris, počinje ubrzano da se razvija i sklapa prijateljstva…
“Za ovu priču je, pre sedam-osam godina, najpre čula moja supruga”, kaže Vuk. “Ona je pozorišni reditelj i u to vreme imala je nevladinu organizaciju koja se bavila korišćenjem pozorišnih tehnika sa decom i radila je sa grupom maloletnih delikvenata u Domu za nezbrinutu decu ’Vasa Stajić’ u Beogradu. Tada je upoznala vaspitača koji joj je ispričao ovu priču kao anegdotu iz svog profesionalnog života. Ona je onda ispričala priču meni i ja sam se strasno zainteresovao. Od samog početka znao sam da nešto moram da napravim od toga. BIlo mi je fascinantno i nisam mogao da verujem da su u Evropi, krajem 20. veka, lovci pronašli dečaka koji je odrastao sa vukovima. Onda sam počeo da istražujem. Najpre sam upoznao tog vaspitača Dragana Rolovića, koji je radio sa divljim dečakom, i on mi je ispričao sve što je znao o njemu. Počeo sam da dolazim u Dom za nezbrinutu decu i da se upoznajem sa tom sredinom”.
Odmah po dolasku u sirotiste divlji decak bio je predmet izrugivanja, ali je, svojom dobrodusnom prirodom, brzo pridobio decu
Vuk Ršumović, kaže kroz osmeh da su neki reditelji, rekli još davno da prvi film ne treba raditi sa decom i životinjama, a on je u filmu imao i jedne i druge. “Ipak, bio sam veoma oprezan. Denisu Muriću, koji igra divljeg dečaka, nisam dao scenario unapred, nego tek kad bi došao na snimanje. Nisam želeo da sam vežba kod kuće, jer bih posle imao više posla da ga odučim od onog što je smislio, a to bi ubilo spontanost. I to je pomoglo. On je izuzetan glumac. Našao sam ga snimanju filma ‘Enklava’ Gorana Radovanovića u kome, takodje, igra zapaženu ulogu. Prethodno sam obišao mnoge škole, ali kad sam njega video znao sam da sam pronašao glumca za moj film. Njegova uloga je zahtevna, jer je u početku sličan životinji: najpre se ponaša kao mala zver, a na kraju filma je socijalizovan mlad čovek. Ipak, bio je odličan u svemu tome, u svim etapama snimanja filma”.
Decak Haris nabasao je na vojnike koji su mu dali pusku. NIko ne zna da li je preziveo rat
Film se završava tako što dečak mora da se iz birokratskih razloga vrati u Bosnu i Hercegovinu. Tamo počnije rat, a u Dom za nezbrinutu decu stiže pismo od lokalnih bosanskih vlasti u kome se zahteva Harisov brzi povratak. Po povratku u Bosnu, Haris nema gde da ode. Dok besciljno luta, nailazi na grupu vojnika koja ga vodi sa sobom. Dobija pušku i odlazi u borbu… U stvarnosti mu se, u jeku nesrećnog rata, gubi svaki trag. U filmu, na njegovom samom kraju, reditelj daje svom junaku simboličnu mogucnost da se, pošto već ne pripada nijednoj zaraćenoj strani, vrati svojoj jedinoj pravoj porodici – porodici vukova. Tako se njegov boravak medju ljudima završava besmislenim ratom, pucnjavom i mrznjom, a dečak se vraća prirodi i divljim zverima koje su, ispostavice se, pitomije i bezazlenije od ljudi.
Vuk Ršumović sa prijateljima na Filmskom festivalu u Čikagu (Vuk Rsumovic with his friends at Serbian Film Festival in Chicao)
Pored Denisa Murića u filmu igraju deca Pavle Čemerikić, Isidora Janković i glumci Miloš Timotijević, Tihomir Stanić, Borka Tomović, Goran Šušljik, Zinaida Dedakin, Branka Šelić, Mihailo Laptošević, Draginja Voganjac, Marija Opsenica, Ljuba Todorović i Bora Nenić. Film je realizovan u produkciji Miroslava Mogorovića iz kuće ‘Art & Popcorn’ iz Beograda. Direktor fotografije je Damjan Radovanović kome je ovo takođe prvi igrani film.
Biografija Vuka Ršumovića
Vuk Ršumović je rođen 1975. godine u Beogradu. Završio je dramaturgiju na Fakultetu dramskih umetnosti u Beogradu. Ima veliko iskustvo u radu na televiziji i napisao je više scenarija za kratke filmove, serije, animirane i dokumentarne filmove. ‘Ničije dete’ je njegov prvi igrani film. Vuk Kaze da je rad na ovom filmu trajao jako dugo – čak osam godina. “Fransoa Trifo je uradio film ‘Divlje dete’ i to je slična priča ovoj . Nastao je na osnovu studije jednog doktora i to se smatra prvom studijom o dečjoj psihijatriji. Taj dečak je nadjen u divljini Francuske, a taj doktor je počeo da radi sa njim. Trifo je rekao da je ovo tema kojom čovek moze da se bavi ceo život. I zaista to sam i ja shvatio baveći se njom, istražujući je. Medjutim, posto sam radio igrani film u nekom trenutku sam morao da podvučem crtu i da kazem – sad je dosta, ono što znam znam, ono što ne znam to ću nekako da domaštam,” kaze Vuk Ršumović.
~ Milica Puric ~