Burlesque Tragedy

Burlesque Tragedy is, just like The Meeting Point, based on a play. In this film, the theatrical elements are however not deliberately hidden, but stylised or even overstylised. The film was largely shot in a realistic style, but also comprises several surreal elements. Markovic openly shows his dissatisfaction with the political system in his country. As a form of subtle protest, the film was entirely shot in Bulgaria, with Bulgarian actors speaking Serbian.The story is set against the background of Belgrade in the Nineties, where the director of a psychiatric hospital decides to take all his patients back to their families because of the bad living conditions. He closes the hospital and starts roaming the outer suburbs of Belgrade with his patients. One of them is the father of a theatre director, whose family is threatening to fall apart. We also follow his vicissitudes. In the end, the two stories cross and the question that emerges is: who is really mad around here?Burlesque Tragedy won the prize for best director at the World Film Festival in Montreal 1995.