Private Project

Goat's Ears aka Out of the Woods

Out of the Woods is a black comedy about a particular woman in a particular country. Stojanka (62) lives in a small village in Banat, on the edge of the Deliblato Sands. As with all her compatriots, her circumstances are wretched – a daily struggle to scrape out an existence and an even worse struggle to make sense of such a life.

At one point in her past, Stojanka – like the country in which she lives – stood at a crossroads and took the wrong turning. Today, determined not to cry over spilt milk, she has survived, but has been unable to find any happiness. Through the minutiae of daily life which follow one on another, always defying expectations, Stojanka uses every opportunity she can to make clear decisions and follow them through in her own eccentric way. Sometimes she succeeds and sometimes she fails.

But through all these events Stojanka realises that identity is not set in stone: it is a living process and it is never too late to repair what can be repaired. And not only for the benefit of those on whom the world depends, but for one’s own personal benefit.

  • Marko Kostic
    Director
    Princ od papira/The Paper Prince (feature film for children)
  • Vladislava Vojnovic
    Writer
    The Paper Prince http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1215513/?ref_=nm_flmg_prd_1 Kako su me ukrali Nemci http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1371628/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_2
  • Vladislava Vojnovic
    Producer
    Princ od papira/The Paper Prince (feature film for children), Mašinica/The Gadget (short)m, Kako sam postao ja/How I became Me (4 episodes documentary TV-serial),
  • Gorica Popovic
    Key Cast
    The Wounds, In the Jaws of Life http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0691419/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_1
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Kozje uši
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 48 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    April 1, 2017
  • Production Budget:
    390,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Serbia
  • Country of Filming:
    Serbia
  • Language:
    Serbian
  • Shooting Format:
    ARRI ROW digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1:1,85
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Domestic premiere
    Belgrade, Serbia
    Serbia
    April 24, 2017
    Domestic premiere: Sava centre, Belgrade, April 24th 2017
    Official Selection: Beiruth Women Film Festival, Beijing International Film Festival, Golden Linden Film Festival...
  • Beirut International Women Film Festival
    Beirut
    Lebanon
    January 22, 2018
    Middle East Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Beijing International Film Festival
    Beijing
    China
    April 15, 2018
    Asian premiere
  • International Film Festival The Golden Linden
    Stara Zagora
    Bulgaria
    June 2, 2018
    Bulgarian premiere
    Official Selection, Best Actress for Gorica Popovic
  • SEEFF à Berlin - South East European Film Festival
    Berlin
    Germany
    May 27, 2018
    German premiere
    Official Selection, Best Actress – International Jury: Gorica Popović for the part of grandmother Stojanka in "Out of the Woods", Serbia
  • Serbian Film Festival Australia
    Brisbane
    Australia
    November 24, 2017
    Australian premiere
    Official Selection, Crystal koala Swarovski for the best film
  • Film meeting Niš, Serbia
    Niš
    Serbia
    August 29, 2017
    Official Selection, Peoples award for the best actrees of the festival for Gorica Popovic
Director Biography - Marko Kostic

Born 6.6.1973. in Belgrade, Serbia. He graduated Film and TV-direction on Faculty of Drama Arts in Belgrade. Director, scriptwriter, producer, lecturer, film theoretician, blogger (www.markokostic.com). He was awarded for many time in Serbia and abroad. His first feature film The Paper Prince was screened at more than seventy international film festival and won a total of thirteen awards. Besides film, he works as director in theater and for televsion. Lives and works in Belgrade.

The main works at film:
2017 - Kozje uši (Out of the Woods)
2012 – Mašinica (Device)
2009 - Građanin ker (Citizen Canine)
2008 – Princ od papira (The Paper Prince)

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Although Out of the Woods is a black, and sometimes dramatic, comedy with picaresque
plot elements, the main characters of the film clearly portray the vulnerable areas of
society.

The elderly, short-sighted Stojanka lives with her young grandchildren in the poorest
part of Serbia, on the outskirts of a ruined village - the bottom rung of the social
ladder. Her home is the visually striking Deliblato Sands, once the bottom of the
Pannonian Sea. The characters are vivid, colourful and witty, but their story is both
allegorical and metaphorical. Nobody in the story is capable of mature decision
making and accountability and, as the weak always are, they are left to survive as
best they can by adapting to everything and anything, whatever the cost.
Stojanka, the senior member of this dysfunctional family, is crippled by a personal
history of poor decisions. Nor have historical circumstances made her life any easier.
Although the action of the film passes in the village, the mentality of the heroine
is largely urban in origin. Stojanka is not a simple village woman: she completed
secondary school and has not forgotten what she learned there. In 1968, as a
student, she took part in demonstrations in Belgrade. She listened to the Beatles.
But, when the misfortunes of 1968 liberalism befell her in the shape of an unwanted
pregnancy, the patriarchal reaction endemic in Serbia sent her back to the village,
there to endure to the end, in the traditionally tough way for women to share the fate
of their nation.

The action of Out of the Woods plays out in the recent past, when arrest warrants were in
force for generals indicted by the Hague Tribunal.When Stojanka comes across a Hunter in the forest, and believes him to be one of the fugitive generals, she decides to be practical: if there is a price on his head, then she should capture him and collect the bounty. But Stojanka’s poor eyesight is matched by her failure to understand things which are incomprehensible to many who are more familiar with political events. The
Hunter, who may or may not be one of the generals, is the scapegoat onto which
Stojanka can finally unload the burden of her long-kept secret.Liberated from the certainty that nothing in her situation would ever change, she is finally able to pick up the life she abandoned four decades earlier.