Screenwriter and director Ivan Marinović has begun shooting his second feature film, Forever Hold Your Peace. Filming takes place in Herceg Novi, a town on the Luštica peninsula where his previous feature, The Black Pin, was also shot.
The central character (played by Croatian actress Tihana Lazović) is a woman who, two days before her wedding, decides to cancel everything without explanation. When the families hear the news, they panic. All the preparations are in place and the whole peninsula is involved. However, her future father-in-law, the heartless Leso (played by Momčilo Pićurić), insists she get married anyway and then do whatever she wants afterwards. They make an agreement, but the marriage does not go as planned. Defined by the director as a “sad comedy”, he says he was greatly inspired by Miloš Forman’s early Czech films, full of parody and social satire.
Co-produced by Adriatic Western (an independent company created by the director) and the Belgrade-based Sense Production, the film received finance from the Montenegro Film Centre and the Creative Europe MEDIA group. Its budget is estimated at €823,000. In 2019 Forever Hold Your Peace was presented at the Connecting Cottbus co-production market. The script also won the 13th Krzysztof Kieslowski ScripTeast Award.
Having trained as a director at the Prague Film Academy (FAMU), Marinović made his first short films, including Praise the Sea, Stick to the Shore. In 2016 his first feature, The Black Pin, was released, although not in France. He also helps programme the country’s oldest festival, the Montenegro Film Festival.
Sources: Cineuropa, FilmNewEurope, ScriptEast
