This is a film made by a Swede - now how do you define that? By blood, by territory, by residency, by a hyphenated ethnic identity? Miko Lazic is actually a second generation Swede. He's a Serbian-Swede. His film Made in Yugoslavia, making its way around the festival route has gotten good reviews, though some critiques are not so much about the film but serve the purpose of bringing his ethnicity into the spotlight.

Lazic has woven a story of two time periods that focuses on a young second generation Swede that wants to become a writer - at age 15, and then 23. His family came to Sweden from Serbia to make money and then planned to return. In the middle of it all, the war breaks out. The father decides to kill himself because he can't go home.

An ethnic Swedish film critic - the kind that somehow implies that his ancestors go back several centuries, applauds "the fresh blood and the temperamant Lazic's film adds to the dominant vanilla taste of Swedish film". But why did Lazic use sterotypes?, the critic wonders, especially cornball humor like Edvard Persson, using the example of a Swedish actor from the 1930's. Something like comparing a film made in 2005 to the The Three Stooges. "With this film, as in Kusturica films, are all Serbs money crazy fanatics?". "Does he know that popular Swedish film - film in general - is nothing but stereotypes?", retorts Lazic. "Why does he use so many colors", another critic writes?". Meaning what? Is this something "un-Swedish" that sticks out?

Lazic was actually inspired by Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, and not the films of Emir Kusturica, but because Miko is a Swede with Serbian heritage, the comparison is a convenient one. "No one called Michael Cimoni's The Deerhunter an immigrant film", he argued, at a Stockholm Film Festival seminar on "double identities in Swedish film". Even with a second generation Russian-American, played by Robert DeNiro! Even with the Vietcong playing Russian roulette with a second generation Scottish-German actor - Christopher Walken. But Made in Yugoslavia is not regarded as a Swedish film. According to some critics- its an "immigrant film". Unfortunately this way of looking at film is all too prevalent in many countries.

Made in Yugoslavia debuted at the Stockholm Film Festival in November. According to Lazic, the film is about interconnections between people, with a mix of comedy and stark reality. The humor in the film isn't any more exaggerated than humor in other films. Because he is color blind he can't explain why there are so many colors, but denies "its an ethnic thing".


In the Swedish state film school Lazic said there was considerable time spent on learning how to film two people sitting in a sofa. Lukas Moodysson uses this technique in several of his films, he explains. But Lazic says that he wants to break against the conventions to make meaningful Swedish films. Made in Yugoslavia is an ambitious first effort.



Moira Sullivan, FIPRESCI