A SERBIAN FILM (Srdjan Spasojevic, 2010)
Category: Cinema > Films
| Original title: | Srpski film |
|---|---|
| Director: | Srdjan Spasojevic |
| Release date: | 2010 |
| Country of origin: | Serbia |
| Genre: | Horror |
| IMDb: | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1273235/ |
Censorship incidents
| September 2010 | Cancelation of the screening of the film A SERBIAN FILM (Srdjan Spasojevic, 2010) |
Description
One of the most infamous films in history, A SERBIAN FILM follows the story of a retired pornographic actor who unknowingly gets involved in a snuff film –i.e., a film where real acts of violence take place. A SERBIAN FILM falls into the horror sub-genre of “torture porn”, an array of films (e.g. Saw, Hostel, The Human Centipede, etc.) of the ‘00s which push the depicted violence to the extreme. The violence in these films is extreme –even in horror standards– hyper-realistic and chaotic, functioning as a mirror of the inexplicable violence of the post-9/11 world. Although these films have frequently been censored, A SERBIAN FILM is a particular case because of a specific infamous scene, where a new-born baby is raped. The director argued that his film was a metaphor for the methods of the Serbian government and for the state of Serbian cinema, as well as a statement against the supposed ‘’fascism of political correctness’’. The film has heavily censored or completely banned in many countries (USA, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Brazil, South Korea, etc.); the most famous incident happened in London, where municipal official demanded that there be 49 cuts (4 minutes) in order for the film to be screened at a horror festival. The festival organizers refused and the screening was cancelled. In Spain and in Brazil, festival organizers were prosecuted and film copies were confiscated, on the grounds of the film depicting and promoting sexual violence, necrophilia and pedophilia.
In Greece, the film was scheduled to be screened at the Athens International Film Festival without any cuts, as a statement against art censorship. However, the screening was cancelled by the organizers after an array of fierce reactions which started from a tabloid and caught on even on left-wing newspapers. As the president of the Greek Directors’ Guild argued in an interview on the aforementioned tabloid, “it’s not a matter of censorship, but a matter of aesthetics’’.
Christos Triantafyllou
Sources – Bibliography
- Fiona Bailey, “A Serbian Film is ‘most cut’ movie in 16 years”, BBC News, 26/11/2010.
- Stavros Dioskouridis, «Οι Σέρβοι είναι αδέρφια μας...», Lifo, 9/9/2010.
- “A Serbian Film: Interview with Srdjan Spasojevic”, Electric Sheep, 5/12/2010.
- Yannis Zoumpoulakis, «Χασαποσέρβικο της ξεφτίλας», To Vima, 31/8/2010.
- Chrysoula Papaioannou, «Σπλάτερ με βιασμό βρέφους σε αθηναϊκό φεστιβάλ», Eleftherotypia, 31/8/2010.
- «A Serbian Film: ένα αληθινό σοκ στην Αθήνα», Ιστολόγιο του Διεθνούς Φεστιβάλ Κινηματογράφου της Αθήνας.
- “A Serbian Film”, Move It Magazine.
- Martin Ian Smith, “Serb your Enthusiasm: Anti-Fandom and A Serbian Film”, Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies 15/2 (2018), 115-134.
- Xavier Aldana Reyes, Horror: A Literary History, London, British Library Publishing, 2021.
