State of Illusion 2018

The film presents a theatrical re-staging of the last pavilion of the defunct state of Yugoslavia at an international world exposition – the Montreal EXPO in 1967 – as an illusionist device. Set within an empty theatre, three dancers rebuild the pavilion’s modular structure and use it to create a set of illusions where the illusionist herself continuously disappears. The assistants and the tricks grow in violence with each of the subsequent six illusions, standing in for the six republics of former Yugoslavia, until the body of the illusionist completely vanishes as did the country.

The film’s conceptual play on nation states as illusions points toward the fragile nature of their conception and survival and pours accent to the stagecraft mechanisms of spectacle which surrounds their presentation to the international spectatorship – which remains hungry for the populism of the growing nationalist tendencies and their destructive force.

Commissioned by DHC/ART Fondation pour l’art contemporain Montreal; supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Kunstmuseum Ahlen, Northern Film School at Leeds Beckett University.

A film by Jasmina Cibic

The illusionist: Kristina Aleksova

Assistants: Josh Ben-Tovim, Dejan Kolarov, Alessandro Marzotto

Cinematographer: Mark Carey

Editor and colorist: Sue Giovanni

Produced by Waddington Studios London

Production manager: Manca Bajec

Location producer: Nataša Pavlović

 

DIT: Miodrag Popović

1st AC: Vladimir Stević

Camera trainee: Agnes Julia Vesterback

Key grip: Dobroslav Milenković – Pekoš

Grip: Ivan Arnautović

Gaffer: Dragoljub Erić

Gaffer assistants: Stefan Jovanović, Veljko Jovanović

Hair and Make-Up: Mirjana Rakić and Danijela Vidarić

Sound recordist: Goran Kulić

Art department supervision: Maša Milovac, Mateja Šetina

Art department assistants: Erika Vujić, Vladimir Topalov

Set magician: Igor Trifunov

Costumes: Jasmina Cibic

Seamstress: Snežana Ignjatović

Stills Photographer: Pete Moss

Stage technicians: Mile Kovačević, Miloš Smiljanoć, Dejan Vuković

Typography: ‘Jugoslavensko pismo’ by Olga Hocker, 1951

Composer: Chris Bemand

Violin: Orla O’Rourke

Clarinet: Bob Mc Kay

Trumpet: Tom Harrison

Voice Over: Caroline Crier

Research assistants: Tanha Gomes, Jelica Jovanović, Mike Wert

Filmed in Sombor National Theatre, Serbia.

 

Thanks to: Phoebe Greenberg, Cheryl Sim, Victoria Carrasco, Cordula Fink-Schürmann, Thomas Schriefers, Vladimir Kulić, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Vesna Meštrić, Tihomir Milovac, Mihajlo Neštrović, Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, Una Popović, Radovan Cukić, Museum of Yugoslavia, Archive of Yugoslavia, The Rooms, Canadian Centre for Architecture.

 

Commissioned by DHC/ART Fondation pour l’art contemporain, Montreal, supported by the Graham Foundation for Advance Studies in Fine Art, Kunstmuseum Ahlen, MSU Zagreb and the Northern Film School – Leeds Beckett University.