‘Artists Should Be Questioned About Everything’ – Stevan Filipovic

"It is an unusual experience"

Stevan Filipovic (1-R) with the crew of the film "Next to you". Photo: Courtesy of Stevan Filipovic

When it comes to the process of writing and preparation, Filipovic says that aspect is much as usual, maybe even more interesting: "There has been a lot of research, lots of hours spent on the laptop, elaborating biographies of characters and constructing story lines."

On the other hand, filming in a time of a global pandemic requires specific conditions. The crew of Next to You waited for the number of infected people to drop below 20 when they scheduled both phases of filming.

According to Filipovic, there are two shooting models - one is completely safe, and the other is partially safe. The first is shooting via Skype or Zoom, and the other way, standard shooting with precautions, is much slower and more strenuous: "It requires masks, reductions of contact during preparation, reductions of team members on set and constant health checks, with the open possibility that the entire circus will be interrupted the same second if any team member is ill."

"From the director's point of view, it is an unusual experience," he says.

Apart from the fact that the coronavirus affected the course of the shooting, it also affected distribution, festivals and similar cultural events.

In the first phase of the pandemic, in early March, theatres, cinemas and other cultural institutions transferred some of their content online, but FIlipovic hopes that's just a "transitional solution".

"It's not so much a question of whether a particular art form can survive online - it can. The question is, what does it mean, what does it entail? The experience of watching a film without...