Interview: Milorad Krstić & Radmila Roczkov

”The line is a dot that went for a walk”

Milorad Krstić and Radmila Roczkov are guests of this year's Anifilm, and Milorad is also participating in the festival as a juror. Furthermore, there is an exhibition of his drawings titled What a Wonderful World at the Liberec Regional Gallery. The two authors brought to Liberec their feature film Ruben Brandt, Collector and excerpts from their upcoming project MouMoush – The King of Plastic. In the following interview, they talk about their films and much more. 

Milorad, you originally come from Slovenia, what made you move to Budapest and what is the Hungarian art scene like at the moment?

I was born in Slovenia, lived in Croatia as a boy, and graduated from the University of Novi Sad, Serbia. I actually moved to Hungary in 1989 because of Radmila.

As for the Hungarian art scene, I believe that whereas in literature where the national language can be a magical source of inspiration, in visual arts, there are no national boundaries. European painters from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries drew their inspiration from the Italian Renaissance more than from the paintings in their home countries. In the 20th century, they drew inspiration from artistic movements in Paris, Berlin, Moscow, London, and New York. Art has become global. So the Hungarian art scene is no different from the art scene in the rest of the world.

How did your cooperation with Radmila start? Which project that you have worked on together was your favourite? 

Milorad: Our cooperation in art began when Radmila and her sisters started to run one of the first private galleries in Budapest and promote my artworks among other contemporary artists in Hungary. In 1996 we started using computers for our work, and the result was the interactive CD-ROM, DAS ANATOMISCHE THEATER (2 hours of animation). We signed this project together and it is my favorite one. 

Radmila: Even though I like DAS ANATOMISCHE THEATER very much, my favourite is  Ruben Brandt, Collector. It was the longest project that we have worked on together (from the start of production in 2011 until its premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in 2018 ). I was involved in screenwriting and producing in all stages of production and promotion. 

Milorad, how different is your approach to painting or drawing and animation? What do you derive from both of these forms? Since you also work with photography, stage design, sculpting and others - is there any visual form that you consider as the superior one?

I must say that in my case there is a little difference between creating drawings and paintings. When I start drawing, I don’t know what there will be at the end. Paul Klee said that the line is a dot that went for a walk. My dot always goes on an adventure. I can start with an eye which could end up being a horse with wings or a boy driving a bike. When I make a painting I already know what I want to paint; that's why I make a sketch first. But in both cases, I don’t need anyone's help or anyone’s advice, since I am the only creator and the only master of my ideas, as well as of the paper and the canvas.

Making an animated feature as Ruben Brandt, Collector is a completely different story. It is a collective job and a very expensive one. I am like the captain of a huge ship that needs to cross the ocean. The crew must be large, but also professional and experienced. It is an art, but it is also an industry. You must be prepared to hear lots of suggestions and advice. You can’t express yourself as freely as in paintings, since you are making a film for the audience. Everyone (including producers, distributors and world sales agencies) expects a successful product – for it to be awarded at festivals and to be sold around the world.

What I derive from my work is a feeling of being rewarded. If I’m satisfied with the drawing, painting, animation, sculpture, or any other work, I feel rewarded. It should be enough as it is, but unfortunately is not. I also expect the audience to like it. The way I feel about my art is similar to the one of a mother being proud of her children. For me, there is no superior visual form. 

What was your first experience with animation like - either as a spectator and as a creator/producer? 

Milorad: My first experience with animation as a spectator was when I saw Disney’s short movies on Yugoslav TV (such as Mickey Mouse and others.) It’s impossible to resist falling in love with them. For the rest of your life. For me, the most heartbreaking scene in the history of animation is the one where Bambi is calling after his dead mother.

I was never taught animation, so when creating my first animation phases for My Baby Left Me I was relying on my sense of movement.  

Radmila: The first animated film I saw in the cinema was Johnny Corncob (János vitéz in Hungarian), a Hungarian animated adventure film directed by Marcell Jankovics. It had a great visual effect on me, when I saw a huge visual cavalcade in front of my eyes with the famous text of Sandor Petőfi, a well known Hungarian poet. Before that, I only saw black and white feature films in the cinema.

Animation came to the fore again when we worked on the Das Anatomische Theater. It was very exciting because at that time we were trying to find the right software for Milorad so that he could make animation at home by himself. 

Milorad, your short film My Baby Left Me feels like a rhythmical dadaist piece full of sexual symbols and artistic references, which lead to a final destruction of the protagonist’s mind. Can you describe the genesis of the film? 

In the years 1992-1994. I was making hundreds of drawings with some funny, erotic, and surrealistic content. Mostly a man playing with a woman and vice versa. A friend of mine, Andras Wahorn, a painter and musician (who made the music for my film), suggested that I should show my drawings to the Varga Studios, the biggest independent animation studio in Hungary at the time. They liked my drawings, they successfully applied with my work to the Hungarian Film Fund in 1994 and they gave me an opportunity to make a short animated movie. Since I wasn’t a professional animator, my characters didn’t know how to move well, they rather pulsated, but they were authentic reflections of my imagination, and in a short film you may even enjoy such movements. Thanks to Wahorn’s good music, my drawings were alive like amoebas under a microscope! The film was finished in January 1995 and in February we got the Silver Bear in Berlin. 

You are also well known for making different interactive projects (such as interactive CD-ROM, interactive websites etc.) that you had been focusing on even before VR or XR was introduced. What inspired you to create projects such as DAS ANATOMISCHE THEATER? Are you currently working on any other interactive projects?  

Milorad: In 1995 Radmila gave me a thick book entitled Berliner Begegnungen, which was about foreign artists living in Berlin between 1918 and 1933. It was full of photos, drawings, posters, and documents, newspaper clippings of the time. After reading it I felt the urge to start a new series of drawings. The drawings were given a political meaning and I gave each of them the title Das Politische Theater after Erwin Piscator's book of the same name published in Berlin in 1929.

In early October 1995, I visited Gustavianum, an old 17th century university building of the medical school in Uppsala, Sweden. Inside, there was a tall and very narrow amphitheater, at the bottom of which was a large, oval-shaped dissecting table. Autopsies have been performed on it for over 350 years. I was alone in this strange room, with daylight pouring in from the high, glass-domed windows, and I felt like I was part of one of Georgio de Chirico's metaphysical paintings. At the entrance to the amphitheater, which is now a tourist attraction, there was an inscription: ANATOMISKA TEATERN in Swedish, DAS ANATOMISCHE THEATER in German. I knew that the German title would suit my new project best. This is how the political theater turned into an anatomical one. The bloodiest century of humanity is not for a stage but for an autopsy table. Cold-bloodedly, like an experienced pathologist, I dissect the fabric of the defining events, figures and phenomena of the 20th century, intending to reveal the reasons that made the century infinitely tragic in the way we know it. As for now, I’m not working on any interactive projects at the moment. 

What is your stance on virtual reality?

Milorad: Virtual reality must be fun, but I believe that with VR we are getting closer to the „Brave New World”. I prefer to think that a time machine must be more interesting. You would be able to travel back into the real reality and meet real cowboys and real Indians, not virtual. Of course, it will never happen, but it sounds better to me, and at least more human than virtual reality.   

Radmila: I mostly like to discover new things, but I have mixed feelings about virtual reality. As good as it can be, it seems to me that it can be at the expense of the development of curiosity and creativity. I believe it could be good for the environment - if millions of people have a tourist experience of Venice through virtual reality, it would cause a lot less ecological and other kinds of damage in the real world. 

Milorad, your work is full of visual symbols, contrasting compositions, figures with stylized features, but in some sense it is also openly political, targeting viewers’ brains and forcing them to reflect on the images they are presented with. What is your major inspiration source and what is the main goal of your art? 

Milorad: All my life I was absorbing pictures - from Altamira cave paintings to Bosch to Van Gogh to Andy Warhol. For me they were always more exciting than reality. Van Gogh’s Starry Sky is more attractive to me than the real starry sky. Malewich’s Black Square evokes more associations than an empty football field. Manhattan from the movies was more attractive than the real Manhattan when I was there.

In my paintings and drawings, my goal isn’t to copy the world around me, I want to copy the world refracted through my prism. Our prism is very useful for analyzing the world around us. If there are a lot of politics in my work, it means there are a lot of politics in the real world. My goal today could be to make a painting that is both provocative and decorative at the same time. Like A winter day in New York City. 

Let’s talk a bit more about your acclaimed 2D/3D feature Ruben Brandt Collector, which is a mashup of psychological thriller and a heist movie. It also has plenty of playful references (and in many cases reinterpretations) of iconic works by legendary painters such as Sandro Botticelli, Paul Gaugin, Vincent van Gogh, René Magritte, Frank Duveneck, Pablo Picasso and others. How did the idea of a psychotherapist haunted by art collections come to you and how did you choose which paintings you wanted to reinvent? 

I decided to make an animated movie, but in a form that is closer to live-action feature films; closer to an action thriller or film noir, away from classic cartoon exaggeration.

I knew that it had to be a film about art, but from the point of view of a serial robber, who is forced by his nightmares to rob the most famous museums and galleries in the world to get the painting he wants. Soon he became the most wanted criminal in the world. Simply, I didn’t want to make an art film about art, but a psychological crime film aboutart.

It was a nice challenge to find the pictures that can be dangerous in Ruben’s dreams. The principle I was guided by was that a child's doll in a good horror film can be scarier than the horrible face of a zombie. That's why I chose "beautiful" paintings and not the "disturbing" ones painted by Edward Munch or Francisco Goya. Following such logic, that beauty can turn into hell in an instant. I enjoyed finding Velázquez’s Infanta Margarita, Botticelli's Venus,  Duveneck’s The Whistling Boy, and other „nice” paintings.. 

What was the most challenging phase of making this film for both of you? 

Milorad: For me, that was the phase when you should persuade some people to give huge money to realize this film. To make the film after this decision was just pure pleasure for me. 

Radmila: For me, the most challenging stage was to assemble a strong and professional team capable of making and finishing a top-quality film. I am glad that the same team is still ready to work on our next project, MouMoush.

What does, in your opinion, make a good cinematic story? 

Milorad: For me, a good story has a strong dramatic content with several turning points, with a climax that engages the spectators’ emotions and curiosity to the very end. A good film for me is an audio-visual symphony that stands on seven legs, which are well synchronized: first, a good story. Second, an enjoyable visual world. Third, good acting or good animation. Fourth, music. Fifth, sound. Sixth, camera movement. Seventh, editing. 

Radmila: I think that is a question for a much more experienced filmmaker. But for me it is a story that has an emotional impact. I can also follow the story just for visual pleasure itself. I do not like stories with a direct, obvious message.

You are currently working on a feature film MouMoush - The King of Plastic, which will be presented at Cartoon movie 2024. Can you tell me a little bit more about it?

Milorad: It is a family-friendly movie about two curious siblings, ten-year old Margo and fourteen-year old Liam, whose summer break turns into an adventure fighting MouMoush, the King of Plastic. MouMoush, who is a powerful man dreaming of world domination, and his right-hand Dr. Sinistrad, use a secret potion to turn Paris bridges and the Eiffel Tower into flabby croissant dough. With the help of Uncle D's Time Machine, the siblings travel back in time to prevent MouMoush's plans.

Radmila: MouMoush is in the stage of advanced development. We have the script finished, the characters and the concepts for a lot of backgrounds and props, and the teaser of 2,5 minutes. At this stage, we have secured a half of the estimated budget for MouMoush.