Kusturica and Bradic’s announcement

Ivo Andric’s novel “Na Drini cuprija” (“The Bridge on the Drina”) will be adapted for the film opera, the director Emir Kusturica and the Minister of Culture Nebojsa Bradic announced yesterday in Mecavnik in Mokra Gora. The project will be under the auspices of the President of Serbia Boris Tadic.

According to the director and minister, the idea about the film opera formed during the Kustendorf Film Festival. The project is planned to be finished until 2011, when the 50th anniversary of Andric’s Nobel Prize will be marked. The production will probably be international and the expenses of the project are still not known.
“While I was shooting ‘Undergorund’, I wanted the actors to sing and move like in an opera. The power of passion which will overwhelm the audience will be dominant in this opera in which even the Drina river can be calm,” Kusturica said and added that he came up with this idea together with Bradic in order to reconstruct the national cultural heritage, and the novel “Na Drini cuprija” is one of our most significant cultural works.
Right now the priority is libretto which will be written by the whole team of script writers, including Emir Kusturica, then composing music, and when the first parts of the mosaic fit together, they will also think about the roles and other details. Certain segments of the film opera will be shot in Visegrad on the old stone bridge.
“This novel encloses our present, past and, I am afraid, future. That is our Old Testament. I know that Ivo Andric opposed ideas of putting his works into other genres due to some bad experiences, but he was not quite exclusive. With good preparation we can overcome potential obstacles,” said Nebojsa Bradic, the Minister of Culture, adding that he will also demand a support of the Turkish Ministry of Culture, which dedicates attention to the heritage from the period of the Ottoman Empire.
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