Two days before the start of the 66th Pula Film Festival, the exhibition dedicated to the great actress and multimedia artist Sonja Savić (1961-2018) was opened at the SKUC Gallery in Pula. After the introductory words by Milan Rašula, President of the Serbian Cultural Centre in Istria, and Gordana Restović, Director of Pula Film Festival, who have expressed their satisfaction with the successful five-year cooperation, Goran Petrović, the Consul General of the Republic of Serbia, and Miroljub Vučković from Film Centre Serbia also spoke to the visitors.

Petrović, who Rašula introduced as a cinephile, commended the successful synergy of the Istria County, Pula Film Festival and Serbian Cultural Centre (SKUC), and emphasised that Sonja Savić has left a mark not only in the cultural, but also the public and political scene. He admitted that his favourite role of Sonja Savić was the role of Dečka in Sugar Water (Šećerna vodica), directed by Svetislav Prelić, for which she received the Golden Arena for Best Actress exactly 35 years ago. Vučković also emphasised that Sonja Savić was an extremely receptive and smart, so she created problems for her directors, who respected her. But it was precisely this that made her carry her roles, mostly written for her, perfectly. Vučković also said that without the films in which she acted the Serbian, Yugoslavian, and European cinema would not have been the same, just as the films would not have been the same without Sonja Savić.

The exhibition Sonja Savić: A City Girl, which will remain open at the SKUC Gallery for the duration of Pula Film Festival, was set up by Predrag Živković, curator of the Nedžada Petrović Art Gallery from Čačak, Serbia, and Mrijana Racković. The Nedžada Petrović Art Gallery was honoured with the legacy of the Čačak-born Sonja Savić. The work Sonja Savić had done in film has brought together Belgrade and Čačak, and even now her childhood home in the village of Donja Gorevnica near Čačak has a Sonja Savić Memorial Room. The Sonja Savić Multimedia Centre is currently being established, and should become the place where young creative people can come together to create new work in alternative theatre, film, video, music, and the visual arts.

Živković said that along with posters, quite a long list of film and television roles, photographs, quotes, and awards of the actress who did not accept the status of a film star and was close to alternative theatre expression, the core of the exhibition focuses on her work as an author. At the height of her acting career, realising that her interests go beyond the medium of classic film, Savić turned to independent projects, music, and video; and completes her first author film in 1996. The audience of Pula Film Festival will be able to watch five of her works as part of this multimedia exhibition, including the noted Play and Šarlo te gleda, which can be can be considered anthological in terms of their significance and artistic value within experimental and alternative film and video production in the territory of former Yugoslavia, even tough her work in directing and screenplay has still not been established in the right way.

Finally, Milan Rašula invited Tatjana Nježić, the author of the biography of Milena Dravić, who passed away last autumn and was present at the opening of the exhibition of her own work at last year’s Pula Film Festival, to say a few words. Nježić read the letter about Sonja written by the most awarded actress in Pula, which, among other things, says the following: “Sonja knew a lot about acting, and she knew everything about film.” Milena Dravić Nikolić, an actress from Belgrade, Sonja’s neighbour, as she signed the letter, emphasised that Sonja had defended urban film, had wholeheartedly focused on music and had fought against primitivism.

On this occasion, the letter was presented to the Nedžada Petrović Art Gallery, which, it seems, is not only working toward preserving the memory of the artist whose roles the urban youth has been quoting for decades, but primarily toward promoting her artistic expression and providing it an active position.

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