Thursday 30 January 2014
Srđan Dragojević | Serbia, 2011 | 115 mins | Cert. 15 | Serbian/English subtitles
In 2001 an attempt to organise the first Gay Pride parade in Serbia ended in bloodshed, with some thirty activists brutally beaten by hooligans and neo-Nazis as police stood by. According to writer and director Srjdan Dragojević, The Parade was first conceived as he watched footage of the violence, later saying “faced with threats from nationalist and neo-nazi organisations, shooting almost secretly, with constant lack of money, I have always had in mind that making [The Parade] is my citizen’s duty.”
Over the next few years Dragojević experimented with different genres, eventually deciding that politically incorrect comedy was the best platform to tell the story of the fight to hold a Gay Pride parade in Belgrade. We meet Pearl and Mickey who are about to be married, and Mirko and Radmilo, a couple involved in organising the parade. Coincidental connections between the two couples mean that when Pearl and Mickey quarrel, Mickey forms an improbable alliance with Mirko and Radmilo in order to win his fiancée back.
Hitting the road with Radmilo, Mickey travels across Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo to assemble his old war buddies into a formidable security team to protect the parade from homophobic attack. As the unlikely band comes together, it becomes clear that apparent enemies can sometimes be your greatest allies.