Goran Paskaljević ( sr-cyr, Горан Паскаљевић; ; 22 April 1947 – 25 September 2020) was a Serbian and former Yugoslav
film director
A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...
.
Biography
Born in
Belgrade
Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...
, he was raised by his grandparents in Niš in southern Serbia, following the divorce of his parents. Fourteen years later he returned to Belgrade where he worked with his stepfather at the
Yugoslav Film Archive
The Yugoslav Film Archive ( sr, Југословенска кинотека / Jugoslovenska kinoteka) is a film archive located in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. Founded in 1949, it is a founding member of the International Federation of Film Ar ...
.
Paskaljević belonged to a group of several Yugoslav filmmakers who studied abroad and graduated from the prestigious Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU). After returning to Yugoslavia, he made some 30 documentaries and 16 feature films which were screened at many international film festivals (such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Toronto and San Sebastian) and met with critical acclaim. The rise of nationalism during the
breakup of Yugoslavia
The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals and conflicts during the early 1990s. After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yu ...
forced him to leave his country in 1992.
In 1998 he returned to Yugoslavia to make '' Cabaret Balkan'', which won the
FIPRESCI
The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for Fédération Internationale de la PRESse CInématographique) is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world fo ...
prize at the Venice Film Festival and at the European Film Awards. In 2001, Variety International Film Guide marked him as one of the world's top five directors of the year. The Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) presented a full retrospective of his work in January 2008.
It was BFI Southbank's (London) turn to organize in July 2010 a full retrospective of his 16 feature films, along with the publication of a monograph (in English) about his work.
Paskaljević lived between Belgrade and Paris, France and he held both Serbian and French citizenship. As of 2008 he was named Officer of the French
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The ''Ordre des Arts et des Lettres'' (Order of Arts and Letters) is an order of France established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture. Its supplementary status to the was confirmed by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Its purpose is ...