"People who decide to act in porn movies [in Serbia] are people on the verge of
social existence, they live from one day to the next. Still, they have nothing
to be ashamed of," Djordjevic adds.
The young director has depicted the fates of the several most attractive
Serbian porn stars. They live in misery and poverty and often make movies
precisely because they can earn the most money in this way. In Serbia, where
the average salary amounts to 150 euros [per month], the money that they get
from a single movie is far more lucrative to actors than, for instance, farming
an agricultural tract of land.
The 50 euro Serbian Stud
No one wants to watch domestic movies anymore - Djordjevic reveals to us.
"Those are exceptionally low quality movies, even though the actors try. Anyone
would sooner rent a foreign porn movie and even the numbers here are -
laughable. Men get 50 euros for the whole film and women get 100. Djordjevic is
worried by the fact that the situation has remained unchanged for years, so
Serbian porn actors are looking for a break abroad, for instance - in
Budapest," he says.
In Hungary, for example, the average price per scene is 500 euros + 20 percent
for the agency that books the model. Therefore, as the people we have talked to
tell us, a producer will pay as much as 600 euros for one good girl if she is
an established name. In Serbia, the price depends on the appearance, the series
of scenes that are filmed, and their variety (several diverse scenes - bigger
price) and, naturally, on the way the scenes are acted.
Low Quality Productions
We looked to the master of the Serbian porn scene for an answer to this
question. Slobodan Stankovic is the self-declared emperor of the Serbian porn
industry, the owner of the magazine Striptiz and probably the most influential
porn producer.
"It is hard to have a good producer who is ready to invest money and not to
have good models. It is easy when I have both one and the other, but those are
really rare situations," says Stankovic, who collaborated with Djordjevic on
the documentary feature Made in Serbia and presented himself to the
audience in an autobiographical role in the film.
It seems that, after the film had been made and screened at the festival, there
was a difference of opinion. To clarify, Djordjevic and Stankovic are not on
speaking terms today. They do, however, agree on one thing. The Serbian market
is in urgent need of investments in order to recover.
Serbs more open than Croats and Slovenians?
"We produce the biggest number of movies and have the biggest number of
magazines [that deal with] those themes. There seem to be several reasons at
play: the first one is the citizens' mentality, I think that Serbs are more
open than Croats or Slovenians. The second reason is definitely the influence
of religion, since Catholics live 'more virtuously.' The third is that Serbia
has been though a difficult political period, so sex served as an outlet for
the problems to people. As the final reason behind the expansion of porn in
Serbia, Stankovic mentions the 'general beauty of citizens.' Owing to the good
looking guys and girls on the streets of Belgrade, it is not difficult to
gather a crew and make a good project," Stankovic points out.
Of course Stankovic's view of his Muslim Croat neighbors is a bit shortsighted
when it comes to piety, faith and acceptance of adult material
Croats in the porn business
The Belgrade porn company Balkan Exotic, with Slobodan Stankovic at the helm,
regrets that there are not more Croats in the business.
"Ira Tigerman once tried to do something in the area, but she asked us how we
find so many models," Stankovic confides.
Serbs are not bashful and they are in dire need of money, so they prefer to
make movies. Since the domestic film Kozjak, which has been banned and caused a
huge stir on the Croatian porn circuit, nothing has happened that had any major
differance in the industry. "It is a pity because Croats are certainly a good
looking people too, we do not have any doubts that the actors would be top
notch," concludes Stankovic.
