Slobodan Šijan

With much joy, we announce the return of the legendary director, writer and painter Slobodan Šijan. His first visit to Grossmann was already in 2007, when he received our Honorary Vicious Cat award. Since, then, we had the honour to have him at Grossmann numerous times, once also as the president of the Vicious Cat jury. This year, we will honour him at the Walk of Fame where he will receive his star, as well as a retrospective which will feature restored versions of his immortal classics Who’s Singin’ Over There and Strangler vs. Strangler.

Slobodan Šijan was born in 1946. After graduating at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, he was actively involved with painting between 1965 and 1980, while also graduating film direction at Faculty of Dramatic Arts. During the 1970s, he directed a number of experimental and short films, as well as TV shows.

Everything changed with his official debut feature Who’s Singin’ Over There (1980), which he made in collaboration with playwright Dušan Kovačević. The film was a huge success and keeps on being discovered and adored by each new generation of film lovers. Another hit film in collaboration with Kovačević followed, undertaker comedy The Marathon Family (1982). His third feature, brilliant satire How I Was Systematically Destroyed by Idiots (1983), was based upon the novel by Moma Dimić who also wrote the script. In 1984, he delivered yet another classic masterpiece, comedy-thriller Strangler vs. Strangler, which is one of the first parodies of pop-cultural fascination with serial killers. After directing Cognac in 1988, there was a 15-year hiatus before Poor Little Hamsters 2010 (2003) and S.O.S. – Save Our Souls (2007). Recently, he is preparing his new film God Be With Us.