Fresh off the world premiere of Cannes Camera d’Or winner César Díaz’s Bérénice Béjo-starring “Mexico 86” in Locarno’s Piazza Grande, France’s Tripode Productions has come on board to co-produce the upcoming feature “Uptight Ass,” from writer-director Matija Gluščević and co-writer Dušan Zorić. The duo’s last collaboration, “Have You Seen This Woman?,” played at Venice Critics’ Week in 2022.
The film, which will be presented at the Sarajevo Film Festival’s Cinelink Co-Production Market, follows a self-centered and emotionally closed-off middle-aged teacher who, faced with his father’s illness, must embark on a probing journey of his own to retrieve the love and vulnerability he has buried deep inside.
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“Uptight Ass” is produced by Čarna Vučinić for Naked, the Belgrade-based production company she co-founded with Gluščević and Zorić, in co-production with Tripode’s Guillaume Dreyfus and Tena Gojić of Croatian outfit Dinaridi Film.
In a director’s note, Gluščević described the film as a deeply personal story and an exploration of the mixed emotions underpinning his relationship with his family. “A feeling of anxiety haunts me whenever I visit my hometown. Despite having an increasing need to prove my love to my parents, I find myself becoming more withdrawn and angry with them. Even after my dad became ill, I failed to properly articulate my feelings,” he wrote.
With “Uptight Ass,” he continued, “I seek to explore one’s masculinity and identity through the family relations, the father/son relationship, and the role of ‘the head of the family’ that [the teacher] Savo is expected to assume.”
The film continues Gluščević’s exploration of the expectations and assumptions that are built into gender roles, both in Serbian society and the world at large. “Have You Seen This Woman?” is an unconventional triptych that follows three different life possibilities for a middle-aged woman trapped in the roles that her patriarchal society tries to impose on her.
Speaking to PvNew ahead of its Venice premiere, Gluščević and Zorić said they wanted the film to depict the stories of middle-aged women who are “rarely portrayed in cinema,” or rendered as supporting characters “at the service of others,” something they described as “a reflection of the society we are living in.”
Vučinić, who produced the film for Belgrade-based Non-Aligned Films, agreed, describing it as “something we didn’t have in Serbian cinematography before.”
“[Gluščević and Zorić] really like to experiment with narration and form,” she said. “With them, it’s always pushing one step forward. They’re always thinking outside the box and thinking about how a character can be super-authentic, but in a non-clichéd way. They’re really into speaking about people who are invisible in our society.”
Guillaume Dreyfus, who co-founded Tripode Productions with Delphine Schmit in 2019, heralded Gluščević as “a very singular voice and a super promising director from Serbia.”
“His first feature, ‘Have You Seen This Woman?,’ is catchy, clever and tackles important issues that go beyond the Balkans region only,” Dreyfus said. “His upcoming film ‘Uptight Ass’ is political, sentimental and provocative, which are qualities that we value a lot, and we are looking forward to working with him and his producer Čarna Vučinić.”
Tena Gojić of Croatian co-producer Dinaridi added: “Working with Matija on the debut ‘Have You Seen This Woman?’ was excellent on both a professional and personal level, so I’m very excited that we’re now developing his new project, which is sure to impact the cinematography of our region and beyond once again.
“Matija is a bold director who is always ready to push boundaries in order to achieve innovative cinematic language,” she added. “He has a dedicated and trustworthy crew around him, and Čarna is a producer I love working with because she has a sharp instinct for films with the X factor.”
Gluščević, who wrote the script during the five-year period it took to finance and produce his debut, said “Uptight Ass” will be “formally, narratively and visually eclectic, enriched with camp style,” utilizing “unusual camera angles and positions” and the “exaggerated sexualization of masculinity in depictions of some characters” to heighten the surreal tone. Vučinić described the film as a drama-thriller with elements of surrealism “where you don’t really know the difference — you don’t know if something is real or in the imagination of the protagonist.”
Former film school classmates, Vučinić, Gluščević and Zorić launched Naked both to develop their own projects and work with filmmakers from across Southeast Europe, with Vučinić noting: “There are plenty of amazing voices coming from the region.”
Praising her two co-founders, she added: “They’re very particular directors. They have very unique taste. It might sound simplistic, but I’ve never worked with anyone before with such a strong vision. They’re people that are really thinking outside of the usual conventions and filmmaking tendencies.”
The Sarajevo Film Festival runs Aug. 16 – 23.
