Immerse yourself in sunny yet tragic Yugoslavia
In this short film with its particularly polished artistic direction, we follow Yulya, a young woman who decides to flee Yugoslavia with her lover Novak, escaping with him on the waters of the Danube thanks to the help of the mysterious Matko. Everything seems to be going smoothly until the boat leaves, when the two lovers suddenly find themselves in the clutches of the Ogre. L’Ogre du Danube is set against a complex historical and geopolitical backdrop, fraught with tension and latent violence. It is a film that does not shy away from difficult themes—exile, betrayal, human cruelty—with a boldness that is highly commendable in the young directors behind this achievement.
Sharp contrasts, a complex balance, and ultimately brilliantly mastered!
If there is one artistic choice that immediately strikes the viewer, it is undoubtedly the bold stylized rendering, which combines refined illustrations with graphic treatment close to the pictorial tradition. “Our film was created in a search for contrasts on an artistic level,” confirm the directors. “We sought to bring out concepts by contrasting them with each other: the humanity of our characters in the face of barbarism, vibrant colors in the face of tragedy.”
Indeed, as they like to point out, the short film contained “some pretty violent, pretty raw stuff. […] Choosing a graphic style that is relatively colorful, illustrative, and aesthetic allowed us to recapture the poetry that we loved in our references.” These references were drawn in particular from Serbian director Emir Kusturica—himself a master in the art of navigating between raw realism and dreamlike poetry—and from many other influential artists from the very beginning of the project.
In the light of these aesthetic intentions, these are indeed elements that stand out very clearly: a constant juxtaposition between visual beauty and the brutality of the story, which gives the film a captivating artistic and narrative tension. This approach also extends to the technical aspects, which are also marked by a certain radicalism: “In designing our images […], we were confronted with the opposition between an organic illustration with unbridled graphics and a so-called ‘traditional’ photorealistic 3D rendering“
It is therefore constantly on edge, in a subtle search for balance and stylistic mastery, that the directors have managed to craft a world that is both oppressive and fascinating, much to the delight of our eyes!
A huge congratulations to all the directors who took part in this project.