Leon Lučev: Together We Are Much Stronger

The Golden Pram for best feature film of the 16th ZFF was received, on behalf of the director Ognjen Glavonić, by the leading actor Leon Lučev. On this occasion he gave an inspiring speech, which was on his mind since the moment he heard that The Load won.

The entire morning I was thinking, in fact since the moment I heard we won an award, what to say about this film. The entire morning I was texting Ognjen and we had a long conversation. There are things on my mind these days and I’m thinking about the point of view I should take and I felt a need to speak from the point of view of a provocateur. Why? A month ago I was shooting and I accidentally came across a post about a veteran from Vodice who committed suicide. He is a no name veteran and no one knows him, but they say he was a peaceful family man. He killed himself. This morning I read a post about a boy, an 18-year-old, from Serbia hanged himself because he was hungry, he had nothing to eat. And then I checked how many suicides have been committed after the war and I felt a terrible pain inside. Coming back to The Load, sometimes it feels much easier to commit suicide because people don’t have support to revolt. They feel isolated and alone. Why am I saying this here, at the Muller Hall? Because it’s nice and warm in here, we saw thousands of films… Perhaps next year there’ll be no Zagreb Film Festival and some new people will come. The Uljanik workers will be no more, the free perspective of ITD Theatre will be no more. And when this happens, this will not be Boris’s or someone else’s responsibility, this is the problem of all of us. Not to feel isolated and alone. I have a feeling that we have a great responsibility, even you behind the camera and behind the microphone. This is the world we live in to not feel alone. Because together we are much stronger”, said Leon Lučev.