Inspired by a letter from a Serbian girl, dedicated to her missing father and read at the United Nations, Dušan Milić wrote the script on the postwar survival situation of Serbs still living in Kosovo. The action takes place in 2004 in a mountainous forest area, where young Milica, her mother and grandfather live in fear. They have a particularly hard time going through the nights, with no one to protect them from possible attacks.
The film was produced by Serbia’s Film Deluxe International in coproduction with Serbia’s This and That Productions and Firefly Productions, Denmark’s Space Rocket Nation, Bulgaria’s RFF International, Italy’s A_LAB and Greece’s Graal. It was supported by Film Center Serbia, the Danish Film Institute, the Bulgarian National Film Center, the FVG Audiovisual Fund, the Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Fund, the Greek Film Center, Eurimages and MEDIA Creative Europe.
The production crew is multinational, including Bulgarian DoP Kiril Prodanov and his crew, together with make-up artist Petya Simeonova. “Kiril Prodanov was my closest collaborator and he did an excellent job. Working with almost no lighting, we tried to achieve the feeling of that discomfort with which people sitting in the dark turn into shadows, ghosts, outlines, and their faces and bodies become a little blurry, without volume. Kiril and I were interested in playing with the expression of the characters' eyes in the dark, which lit up in an incredible way,” said Dušan Milić.
Darkling won the Audience Award at the 2022 Trieste IFF, after which it was released in 16 Italian towns. In Serbia, it premiered in the competition of FEST 2022 in Belgrade, where it grabbed the Best Regional Film Award. The Bulgarian premiere was at the Sofia FF in March 2022.
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Production Information:
Producer:
Film Deluxe International (Serbia)
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Coproducers:
This and That Productions (Serbia)
Firefly Productions (Serbia)
Space Rocket Nation (Denmark)
RFF International (Bulgaria)
A_LAB (Italy)
Graal (Greece)
Credits:
Director: Dušan Milić
Scriptwriter: Dušan Milić
DoP: Kiril Prodanov
Composer: Kristian Eidnes Andersen
Cast: Danica Ćurčić, Slavko Štimac, Miona Ilov, Flavio Parenti, Ivan Zerbinati, Nikola Kent, Darren Pettie, Nikola Rakočević, Slaviša Čurović, Slađana Bukejlović
