We recognize the signature of versatile artist Aleksa Gajić, the star of contemporary comics in Serbia, in the tall, casually dressed figure of a girl with perfectly trimmed blond straight hair. This attractive blonde is the heroine of his film debut - a futuristic animated movie, Edit & I, which is due to premiere in 18 months. So far Gajić and the eight-member crew, working under the "Cinears" production company, have completed 26 minutes of the planned 75-minute final version that tells of the fate of a girl who faces strange physiological and psychological problems when her body becomes the vessel of another personality, a man no less.
| The action unfolds in Belgrade in 2074, and the science fiction story is visually framed in a Belgrade of an imaginary future, which creates an unusual combination of known places set in a futuristic milieu. In a technical sense, the movie is a combination of four animation techniques. The voices of heroes are provided by, among others, Saida Knežević, Zoran Cvijanović, Boris Milivojević, Srđan Todorović, Seka Sablić and Nebojša Glogovac, all leading actors. The film score is entrusted to several Belgrade bands. |
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- After six colour albums that I did for French publisher "Soleil", and more than 300 tableaux, I realised that comics were no longer the sort of challenge that I liked to cope with. I wanted to try something that didn't differ too much from comics but offered a new dimension. This is, certainly, a change. The animated film has almost identical rules of directing and editing as comics. All that I had to do was to begin, - says Aleksa Gajić for Jat Review.
You generally write your own scripts and that is also the case with this film...
- When I was working on this screenplay, I really tried to produce something that I would like, but not something that over-emphasized the author's signature. The story goes deeper into the psychology of character than is usually the case with comics. Let us unveil the plot: Abel is an autistic mathematic genius who discovers the unification formula. When Edit, a girl who takes care of him, happens to see a graph of the formula, a chip in her body starts developing its own personality - Edit. Soon, they are being closely followed by the heads of TDR Corporation, for which Albert works. Helped by her newly acquired supernatural powers, Edit manages to save Abel and herself from the claws of TDR, but it soon becomes clear that Edit's body has place for another person...
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The story takes place in Belgrade...
- It can be placed anywhere, but considering that it is an author's film and that its producers had their own view, I decided to place it here. It will be interesting to recognise the sites wrapped in a mild futurism. Finally, I think that for foreigners this will place an accent on the exotic story and characters (who speak a juicy Serb language).
How have the actors engaged in the project reacted?
- People find it strange, and at the same time interesting, to see a local story in the technique of animated film. The same is true of the actors. |
We associated and worked just fine for several days, and it seems that the actors were all too happy to give their voices to something so unusual.
Apart from this animated film, the novelty is that you also do covers for the new monthly comic serials "Faktor 4" and "Wild Magic" produced by domestic artists (published by Luxor), which have been supporting comics by contemporary artists since last summer, attracting the attention of ninth art fans...
- I was lucky to have done a number of cover pages for domestic comics. Like American comic sheets, domestic publishers have opted for covers by a "cover artist" rather than by an author who also does the comic. And, here I am...
You see comics and film as kin media, which they actually are, but it seems that you really insist on this. Why so?
- People usually look on comics with disdain, though there is no reason for that because comic authors are versatile people. A comic author has to be a good director and a good screenwriter, a costume designer and an architect. Actually, everything we see on film a good comic artist should be able to draw. I endeavour to be a complete author of my comics. Then one has the highest possible freedom, though freedom is at the same time a sort of slavery. However, true progress in comics has only occurred in author comics.
You are known for bringing historical figures into imaginary galactic space...
| - I like the combination of SF and history. We must continually refer to history, but we must offer contemporary audiences a spectacle, to use laser guns instead of swords and basically narrate the same story. We are all essentially big children who want to be entertained, and if somebody can give us some useful information and turn our attention to a certain historical lesson while also entertaining us - why not? |
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This is the best way to attract someone's attention. People no longer have patience for dry information.
What should a comic be today in order to gain acceptance?
- In any case, the more they are present the higher the responsibility. We can say that a critique of society as such is rather useless in any form of culture. The media has done the most to introduce us to the deepest possible dramas, such as film and comics will never portray. My impression is that art will turn more and more to aesthetic values and tell us universal stories.
How did you create "Rust in Peace" for which you were awarded Best Film of Southeastern Europe and an award by the International Association of Film Animators, ASIFA at Balkanima, the 3rd International Animation Festival recently held in Belgrade?
- I've entertained the idea of making a short film about a cemetery of robots for a long time. It was done as a paraphrase of King's "Cemetery of Pets" and the film is actually a music video which, through a series of frames, shows how people in the future will bury broken robots. Like Edit & I this work was also done with a combination of techniques and is characterised by an exaggerated atmosphere accompanied by classical music arrangements that create an unusual, post-apocalyptic vision of the future.
| Skillful, gifted and with an abundance of ideas, Gajić already became recognised with his graduation work at the Academy - "Technotise". He has achieved great success with his futuristic comic work "The Scourge of God" published in 200,000 copies by French publisher "Soleil". "Publishing all kinds of works from time to time encouraged me to continue, but only when I signed a contract with the French publishing house could I relax. A really large commission from which I fled for so long proved to be a splendid way to continue my art without financial limits, and at the same time not to become too abstract." Developing his own style - a combination of historical spectacle genre and science fiction - and at the same time dedicated to the most current tendencies in comic book art, Gajić supplies his artwork every October to his publisher in Toulon, which also publishes his author's serial "Technotise". | | 
