Former Yugoslavia’s brutalist architecture shines in new Star Wars fan film · Global Voices
Breaking Point: A Star Wars Story. Scene shot in the catacombs under Tašmajdan park in Belgrade. Photo by <PERSON>. Used with permission.
At the end of last year, a Star Wars fan film with a difference enjoyed its online premier.
Breaking Point: A Star Wars Story is a 25-minute short movie made by a volunteer crew composed of around fifty professional filmmakers, film students and members of Serbia's Star Wars fan community.
It is written and directed by the award-winning Serbian filmmaker <PERSON>.
The film was shot on locations near the Serbian capital Belgrade.
The futuristic Monument to the Fallen Soldiers of the Kosmaj Partisan Detachment from World War II atop Mount Kosmaj and the Monument to the Unknown Hero of World War I atop Mount Avala were both successfully transformed into Jedi landmarks.
The apocryphal story is set before the real Star Wars movie The Force Awakens and depicts the demise of the Jedi order perpetrated by <PERSON>.
Global Voices got in touch with <PERSON> to talk about the movie.
Global Voices (GV): Your movie received very positive media reviews, and was lauded by local StarWars fans. Fan fiction rarely sees this level of production. How did you manage it?
<PERSON> (SF): I think one can easily underestimate how much Star Wars means to people around the globe. It's a crucial part of our identities, much more than some local cultural phenomena, at least for a lot of people of my generation. I think we could never do something like this — get a completely professional film crew, and such amazing actors, for a non-profit fan film — if we all didn't share a lot of love and respect for this fictional universe <PERSON> has created.
Left to right: <PERSON>, <PERSON> and <PERSON> on the set of Breaking Point: A Star Wars Story. Photo by <PERSON>. Used with permission.
But, the other key was the story. I didn't set out to make a fan film, I wanted to make this really personal story, that happens to be set in the Star Wars universe. 260
I think people reacted to that, saw the raw emotions and the potential of it, very early on. <PERSON>, who plays <PERSON> in the film, was there with me from the very start when I started dreaming about this film.
And then <PERSON> went to Disneyland, and brought me a gift — <PERSON>'s lightsaber, and I knew I wanted him to portray the younger brother, <PERSON>. He has this mix of naïveté and pain that I thought was integral to the character.
<PERSON> was selected through casting, but the moment she walked in, we thought — that's <PERSON>.
The rest of the crew was something of a filmmaker's dream. We had great support from Hypnopolis, the company that has produced all of my films. Basically, everybody who volunteered to help was listed as a co-producer, since we didn't have a budget.
In the end, with almost no resources, with shared love for Star Wars, and connections from my previous three feature films, we got quite literally the top Serbian film crews in all fields: from stunts to world-class visual effects, professional color grading, award-winning sound designer, through amazing creatures and prosthetic make-up effects, insane music (available on our YouTube channel ), and — of course — great help from the students of the Academy of Arts, where I teach.
A scene from Breaking Point: A Star Wars Story. Photo by <PERSON>. Used with permission.
<PERSON>: Artists from the Balkans, like <PERSON> from North Macedonia, have in the past explored visual similarities between Star Wars iconography and the brutalist architecture of former Yugoslavia. Your film has brought this connection to a whole new level and through a completely new medium. How did you decide on those particular monuments?
SF: There is something very deeply ‘Star-Wars-esque’ in the stories and legends of former Yugoslavia, or, rather – vice versa. The epic exodus and rebirth of WWI, and then — chaos, civil war, <PERSON>'s rebel partisans from all nations who overcame their differences to fight a great evil (the Nazis), their victory, peace, the creation of this New Republic, which leads to another rise in nationalism and the fall of the Republic… It's hard to separate our actual history from a synopsis of the entire <PERSON> saga!
Jedi Temple in Breaking Point: A Star Wars Story, photo by <PERSON>. Used with permission. 260