Goodbye Beautiful
Project Info:
„GOODBYE HEROES“ has been produced since 2019 by the Serbian production company
Propagandafilm, with financial support from Media, the Serbian Film Center and their own resources. In 2023 the German Fimproduction Doppelplusultra stept in. The film is currently in the rough cut stage. The release is planned for the beginning of 2024.
Log Line
“Goodbye Heroes” is a film about Antifascism that explores the story of the young partisan heroes of WW2, highlighting the personal connection of the film director to these heroic children who played a crucial role in shaping his one belief in Antifascism.
Short Synopsis
Misa and Zdenko, both over 90 years old, were child partisans during World War II and active and respected comrades in communist Yugoslavia. Today, they are fighting their final battle against capitalism and fascism by trying to preserve an old memorial site and opposing investors.
They are accompanied by a 40 years old puzzled director trying to keep them alive through the pandemic times while telling his own childhood history who expected a bright, utopian future but ended up as a grown man in a completely different world.
Slow and painful attempt to save a WWII Fallen hero’s memorial from becoming a ruin or a top estate for greedy capitalism reveals a society where the only heroes are the couple of old partisan veterans. Misa and Zdenko, both over 90 years old, were child partisans during World War II and active and respected comrades in socialist Yugoslavia. They are accompanied by a 40 years old puzzled director trying to keep them alive through the pandemic times while telling his own story of a child who expected a bright, utopian future but ended up as a grown man in a completely different world.
Long Synopsis:
Miša Mirkovic (90) was celebrated like a pop star in Yugoslavia. During World War II, he served as one of the many child partisans who were celebrated as superheroes in countless films, children‘s books, and songs in post-war Yugoslavia, shaping an entire generation.
After the war, he played the heroic child partisan in various films that won the hearts of the people, before becoming a well-known TV presenter in the 1950s. His popularity was used in the pro-communist education system to ideologically shape Yugoslav youth.
Together with the resolute former secret agent Zdenko (91) and other party veterans, he regularly meets to continue the fight against what he sees as the still prevailing fascism or alternatively capitalism.
Since 2019, the two veterans have been fighting to preserve a memorial site for the most famous child partisan, Boško Buha. The memorial site has great symbolic value for Miša and Zdenko. It symbolizes everything they lost their families for as children, risked their lives for, and have been fighting for to this day.
This memorial site is threatened with demolition to make way for an investment object. Miša and Zdenko, who stoically follow their convictions, are preparing for a final battle.
Although they are not aware that their „anti-fascist struggle“ appears antiquated and sometimes ridiculous, they manage to become figureheads of a nationwide movement that not only critically examines capitalism but also deals with the post-Yugoslav legacy.
Over a period of five years, the director Vladimir (41) observes the actions of the two veterans. Zdenko and Miša are also the heroes of his childhood. His grandmother sang him partisan songs to sleep, he wore the red scarf of the communist pioneers and dreamed of being as heroic as Bosko.
But the country of his childhood is torn apart in a bloody civil war. Vladimir sees his father disillusioned
and broken after returning from the front. In this torn and traumatized country, Vladimir tries to reinvent himself in the 1990s between punk, protest, and partisans. During the filming, the two unequal men get closer. For Vladimir, this is an opportunity to critically question his childhood imprinting and to understand himself and his country anew.
