Newspapers sue you, newspapers judge you

Films that break every thought about silence as a desirable escape, empowering to raise one's voice while preserving one's own and the dignity of those who are not yet stronger than silence, and so they need to be, are on the repertoire of this year's 13th edition of the Montenegrin Human Rights Film Festival. Accelerate"... This was pointed out by the executive director of the Center for Civic Education (CGO). Daliborka Uljarević, opening the "Ubrzaj" festival in Podgorica, traditionally on the International Human Rights Day - December 10.

In addition to Podgorica, where an interesting program encouraging important topics is already heating up, this year as in previous years, there are parallel editions in Kotor - yesterday and today in the cinema "Boka" and the Gymnasium "Kotor", as well as in Berane for the next two days in the "Panto Mališić" Gymnasium and the Cultural Center.

This is exactly what the film "To the Board" by a journalist and director from Serbia is like Aleksandar Reljić, which will be shown in all three cities. "Do daske" is in the repertoire today at the Boka Cinema in Kotor at 18 p.m., and on Wednesday, December 14, the screening will be held at the "Panto Mališić" Gymnasium in Berane at 11.40:19 a.m., and at XNUMX p.m. at the Montenegrin Cinematheque in Podgorica, and Reljić will be guest in those cities and to talk with the audience about his achievement that brings the story of Srdjan Švelj and the fight he continues to wage - with the media and the public, in which he found himself unfairly.

The award-winning film reminds us how small man is compared to the system, how powerless he is in the machinery, and how insignificant his life is in relation to the goal and the demonstration of power for the sake of obedience.

"At the beginning of 2020, arrests of pedophiles, politicians and other public figures were pompously announced in all media. Instead of them, on January 28, 2020, the police arrested a fashion photographer, stylist and DJ from Novi Sad. Srdjana Švelja. Before the official arrest, the media already announced that Šveljo was a 'pedophile' who 'raped, pimped, drugged and photographed boys for pornographic purposes'. The tabloids called him a monster and a predator and published his image on the front pages. They went so far as to call on the judges to give him the maximum sentence of 40 years in prison. Although the prosecution in Novi Sad filed an indictment in which none of the charges were related to pedophilia, the public could not find out because the trial was closed. A man's life and reputation were destroyed, and the announced arrests of pedophile politicians have not happened to date," the synopsis points out.

Although the film's protagonist was never tried for it, the media accused Srđan Švelj of pedophilia, which is another example of "witch hunting with impunity".

"Trials through the media are a common phenomenon in the Balkans. Newspapers, especially tabloids, conduct witch hunts with impunity. Anyone who stands in the way of the powerful becomes a victim of the stigmatization of the media and institutions, such as Srđan Švelj, who was accused by the media of pedophilia, although he was never tried for that crime," the description of the film adds.

And the whole situation, Reljić points out, is best described by the title of the film "To the Board", which reads: "The media sues you, the media judges you", and he wanted to focus the audience's attention on the problematic nature of this, among other things.

"It was most important for me to draw attention to the horrible phenomenon of the trial through the media in Serbia. The very title of the film is 'Newspapers sue you, newspapers judge you!' and that whole phenomenon was easy to present through Srđan's case. He was literally condemned by the newspapers, and when we say the newspapers, of course we didn't fall from Mars and it's actually clear to us that someone very powerful was pulling strings from the dark. I hope this is seen in the film in a very subtle way, because neither Srdjan nor I wanted to poke anyone's eyes. I think the strength of the film lies precisely in that fact," said Reljić.

He goes on to explain how the film was made and what all the stages went through until the end result, considering that the first video was released just before the court's verdict, and that later filming continued, so it also included a period of house arrest.

"I never heard anything bad about that man, which is really rare. When everything happened, I was suspicious at the start, especially because of the fact that I am a journalist. From the way the media reported, from who was reporting and what that orchestrated circus of stigmatization looked like, I could see that there was something strongly reeking," says Reljić, whose sense of smell did not deceive him.

A few months after the beginning of the media process aimed at Švelja, Reljić was contacted by their mutual friend Rajko Christmas with a proposal to make a video about the whole case.

"The idea was to spin the story as if we were making a documentary film, in order to calm the public down a bit and try to create some balance around Srđan's case. We made a ten-minute video called 'Discrimination is not a joke', posted it on YouTube, and a week before the first-instance verdict was pronounced, in November 2020, it was viewed by almost eight thousand people. But when I took the first step, I had to go ahead and shoot the whole film, because I don't like unfinished business. And that's how the documentary film 'Up to the Board' was created, and BIRN Serbia and Awakenings Film were involved as co-producers in the whole process, and everything was much easier," says Reljić.

The film was shot in three stages over a year and a half...

"I mentioned the first phase, and then, during Srđan's ten-month stay in pre-trial detention, a large number of his friends, some media and legal experts, public figures, and family members were filmed. At that time, one of Srđan's models was also filmed, who was a direct participant in the event that would lead Srđan to prison. None of them sued him. On the contrary, those young men, of whom only one was 17 and a half years old, all testified in his favor, but the public did not know that, because the trial was closed. It was very important for the film to have that testimony. The second phase was that house arrest in which we got completely close to Srđan and tried to portray his condition and demeanor with the whole situation in which he found himself. Finally, the third phase was his stay in the prison in Sombor, where we filmed him when he would get out on the weekends. Srdjan was in semi-open detention in the Sombor prison, the only thing he had to do was to serve his sentence 'until the end of the day'. That's why the film is called 'To the Board', because it's actually a prison colloquial term for serving a sentence without parole," explains Reljić.

He adds that for Švelj, filming meant a kind of lifeline and small consolation for everything that happened to him, but also a channel through which he will be able to go public and say that what happened to him was a great injustice, and besides all that , the film somehow removes the stain from Srdjan and sends a strong and sobering message to viewers.

"In this film, Srđan proved to us that what happened to him can happen to each of us, if we stand in the way of some kind of politics, powerful people or simply find ourselves suitable for some of their sick goals, which are achieved precisely by hunting witches , villainous tools and technologies. As far as I'm concerned, it was very important that he trusted me from the very beginning and that he immediately opened up to cooperation, so that I could introduce him to the audience in what seems to me to be the most natural way, tell what actually happened to him, as well as to present a monstrous machine that tried to swallow him, but it didn't succeed and that remains to be seen", concludes Reljić before the "Acceleration" tour in Montenegro.

Working on the movie "Mamula All Inclusive"

After a series of awards, "To the Board" is also the laureate of this year's Merlinka festival, and it was also selected for the Balkan New Film Festival in Stockholm, where the screening will take place on December 20.

Aleksandar Reljić is a journalist and the author of numerous television documentaries, which mainly dealt with the topics of the culture of memory, war crimes, protection of human rights, xenophobia and the like. He is the author of the documentary-educational program of Radio-television of Vojvodina, and for two years he was the editor-in-chief of that newsroom. His film "Grandson" received several domestic and foreign awards and was nominated for the best European documentary film of the year in 2018 at the Prix Europa festival in Berlin. It tells the story of the grandson of the notorious commander of Auschwitz and the survivor of the camp who symbolically adopts him as her grandson.

In addition, Reljić is currently working on other projects, among which is "Mamula All Inclusive", motivated by the story of the transformation of the Bokelje fortress Mamula, on the island of Lastavica, from a former concentration camp into a luxury hotel resort...

"It's important for me to deal with those topics that people are afraid of and don't have enough guts to deal with, and that's why the film 'Do daska' is special to me in that sense. It seems to me that to this day I am the only one in the public space who spoke about this case in a different way and contributed at least a little to remove the stain from Srđan's name. It really means a lot to me, especially after the reaction of the audience who, after the premiere in Rab, Novi Sad and Belgrade, accepted both the film and Srđan in a wonderful and special way", Reljić points out.

There is no excuse for silence

With this year's 13th edition of the Human Rights Film Festival, CGO marks 20 years of work and, just like the motto of the festival is "Stronger than silence", they fight for the affirmation of human rights and dignity, the strengthening of civil values, the rule of law, against anyone's right to rule, said Uljarević.

At the opening, this year's award for the affirmation of human rights and civil activism was presented, which went to a lawyer Sinisi Gazivodi.

"We live in a turbulent time that shakes us from the ground up, forces us to determine ourselves daily according to values ​​and principles, opposing in these determinations those who choose to turn a blind eye to the inadequacies of the "worthy". And there is no excuse for silence. Because there must not be silence in front of injustice, in front of bullies, in front of primitivism, in front of powerful people who think that everything is allowed to them", said Uljarević.

Later, there was a screening, premiere in the region, of the film "Son", by the French writer and director Florian Zeller, which brings together a top-notch cast.