Milos Latinovic, writer and director of Bitef Theater – Life is a voyage of passions

Theater is his passion, and if it weren’t, he says, he would probably be a rich man today. He is a lover of football and a joyful man by nature, a writer, whose next book deals with love and passion. When he is not occupied with writing or theater administration, he loves to take idle walks. Latinovic is an eloquent man and a good friend.

The upcoming Bitef Festival (September 22-30) is a good occasion to meet the head of the theater and talk to him from a slightly different angle.

eKapija: Ahead of the upcoming festival, what is it that you look forward the most, and what do you fear the most?

– As a cultural and public event, a festival needs to create a good feeling in its environment, especially in those organizing it, otherwise, it would be a forced marriage. This is why I’m both impatient and happy, as the fruit of our idea and hard work will be shown to someone who eagerly awaits it. That’s where the biggest fear lies as well, as we want to fulfill everything we’ve planned, without letting anybody down.

eKapija: This year’s Bitef will be an Epic Journey, as its motto says. Can myth be discussed in a contemporary context?

– Certainly. The program of the Bitef Festival will confirm my conviction that “ancient” stories are current and easy to read, because of the way we are – self-satisfied, imperfect, arrogant and callous. Epics work as educational literature nowadays too, but we are bad students and we read either very little or not at all, and even then, whatever is transferred to us from those distant times through certain channels, indirectly, seems to us unimportant and needless. Bitef reminds with its conception that suppliants still exist, as do arrogant rulers and brave sisters.

eKapija: To you, who are the modern heroes?

– All those why try to use their own heads, while still managing to save them from their own delusions and madness, but also from enemies.

eKapija: The biggest expectations at this year’s Bitef are tied to the 24-hour play Mount Olympus. What does a 24-hour period look like for the head of an organization such as Bitef?

– In essence, these are 24 hours of an administrative worker, whose working hours are filled with meetings and establishing contact with artists and various people crucial to a certain project. This routine is broken by frequent travels and afternoon events in which I play the role of a father, writer, theater and cinema aficionado, an idle walker, an eloquent friend...

eKapija: You studied at the Faculty of Political Sciences, and you first worked as a journalist. You were also the head of the Kikinda library and acted as the deputy president of this municipality in Vojvodina. Which of these experiences did you find to be the most important to you as a manager of a theater, or is that a whole different kind of experience?

– I consider my short political outing a personal failure, a lost time, as I wasn’t able to do much in four years, but it’s a fantastic experience for any kind of job. In that period, I learned nearly everything there is to know about people and their caprices, though I am still surprised sometimes.

(Photo: Mammut Vision/shutterstock.com)

eKapija: Do you still regret not having become a football player, as you once said in an interview?

– No. That was a youthful fantasy. However, my football career is an important experience in life. By playing football and being a part of a team, you realize the value of discipline, a system, the presence of others, your co-players, the players of the opposing team, the referee, who sometimes happens to favor one side, and the fans. Football is a personification of what life is made of. Delight. Power. Cheating. Sorrow. Passion. Eduardo Galeano recently wrote about that, and the only regret I have is that, nowadays, I don’t write about football, and I love it so much and I follow nearly all related events.

eKapija: In which case would you exchange your growing up in Kikinda for Belgrade.

– Under no circumstance, ever. Kikinda is ideal for young people. It has everything. It is calm and carefree. That’s how it was when I was growing up and still is. Belgrade is more suited for mature people, for university studies, for first jobs, for recreation. Kikinda also has an advantage when it comes to years of silence.

eKapija: What do you think people value the most in you?

– Being calm and joyful in character.

eKapija: What do you think is your biggest flaw?

– The fact that I sometimes let things I find hurtful and annoying slide by without saying anything, convinced that it’s only human stupidity, and not a smoldering evil.

eKapija: What would those who know you, or think they do, find surprising to learn about you?

– Those who know me, know everything about me. I am a public person through and through, as I have always done, both as a young man and now, what I felt like doing, without hiding myself. I’ve always been open and honest, which has caused me harm at times, but I’ve had fun all along.

eKapija: What do you find yourself unable to say no to?

– I can’t refuse anything to my children or Jasmina or my friends. No is the word I hate the most. Personally, I can’t say no to good food and wine.

eKapija: You claim that the names of the characters and the toponyms in your books are not random. Does this mean that you don’t believe in coincidences?

– A comedian’s case, as Milos Crnjanski named it, is not a character to be overlooked. There may not be coincidences in life, but there are coordinates connecting what otherwise cannot be linked, making for the unexpected, the sudden and the unplanned. I believe in the fantastic possibility of something happening outside of the plan, outside of our desires and fears. But, for this to happen, I believe, it is necessary for exact coordinates to exist. The combination of the factual and the irrational is what makes literature more beautiful and life more interesting.

eKapija: What will your next book be about?

– Love and passion. It will be called Stages of the Night.

eKapija: Is it harder to be a writer or a director of a theater in Serbia today?

– It’s not easy being in Serbia today, period. It’s hard to live in constant crisis, fear for a job, for a future. I face this every day, whether through thinking about it or talking to colleagues with ideas and projects. Still, I believe that writers have it extremely hard today. A writer is a devalued person, though I believe that the profession itself must take a good part of the blame, as the literary world is disjointed, burdened by partisanship, emphasizing ideological characteristics, stretched thin by its striving for symbolic power, hatred, put-downs...

eKapija: What is the future of theater in our country?

– It won’t disappear, but that’s not an optimistic statement. Artists need room to breathe, but also to create, they need freedom, support, belief in their ideas... There’s less and less of that or not at all. Here, an artist is the biggest enemy, unless he or she is needed for a political of public promotion. That is depressing. This is not the case with countries with an established relationship towards culture. We used to have that once, whereas now, due to the authorities’ opposition to it, it has all come down to the idea “to kill the mockingbird”. An artist cannot be dangerous, as a true artist is open and says what they mean publicly. They are not an unknown factor, a terrorist in hiding, planning evil deeds.

eKapija: You are a father of two. Would you like to see them in the world of art as well?

– They are both free to do whatever they want, and if they choose art, so be it. Minja is now at the Faculty of Law and she is a good student, but she wants to direct. In my opinion, that kind of choice is a good thing, as it is important for her to know something about life before she starts directing it for somebody else. Dusan is another story altogether, but he’s still young. He’s talented, but lacking in will, and art requires persistence and hard work. I believe he will soon “wake up”.

eKapija: What are your “Four Insanities”, as the name of your latest book goes?

– To a smart man, one is enough. I always recall the line from The Black Bomber which goes: “A healthy, young man, but crazy”. I’ve had a different motto: “Good on those who go insane when young, their whole lives are spent in joy”. Theater, then. That’s my insanity. If I were not insane, I’d probably be a rich and successful man now. But, you can’t go against yourself and your own madness.

eKapija: Life is...?

– Sometimes gray... Life is a trip down the Magdalena River. Each of us has their own river, down which Marquez’ hero sails, with our long awaited love. This is not an ordinary journey. While sailing, in your life, you meet various people, you make mistakes, you make promises, children are born, you lose at the roulette of success, you talk to birds, you make nests out of sticks and believe they will last, you are ill, you celebrate reconvalescence, you are struck by poisoned arrows, you are delighted by technological innovations... and when it seems that you have reached the end, that the yellow flags of the plague mark the end of the journey, the captain says, let’s go back, upstream, to the harbor we have set out from. And you do, believing that you will get there young, fresh and in a good mood. But, that’s not a given. It is only another circle, one of the many destined for us. That is life. A voyage of passions.

eKapija: Is there anything you haven’t been asked and would like to have been?

– There are things I’ve never discussed and that I would like to say something about, but I haven’t had the chance. But, I’m not sorry. It’s better that way, as it’s not good for a man to speak his mind on certain things, issues, events – the Kosovo situation, the borders of Serbia, nuclear power plants, space flights, capabilities of the basketball national team – he is not too familiar with. As a people, we are known for having unequivocal attitudes about everything, without being prepared to be held responsible for them, to suffer the consequences. For this reason, I believe it’s better to be silent if you are not well informed about an issue and to apologize and say it doesn’t fall under your area of interest if asked about it. That would be civil. That would be fair. Nobody needs general practitioners of philosophy, aside from themselves. That’s what they’re here for.

Biography

Milos Latinovic was born on September 23, 1963, in Kikinda, where he finished primary and secondary school, following which he enrolled at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade. He has worked as a journalist in the Komuna newspaper and Radio Kikinda, and he has also cooperated with several daily newspapers and magazines in Serbia, among them, Dnevnik, Borba, National Geographic and others. Between 1999 and 2001, he was the acting director of the National Library Jovan Popovic in Kikinda, and, from 2003 till 2008, he ran the National Theater in this town. As a member of the Municipal Council of Kikinda, he was in charge of culture, education and media from 2008 till 2013. In the last three years of his mandate, he also performed the duties of the deputy president of the Municipality of Kikinda.

He has authored six short story collections, five novels, two essay collections, two monograph and around ten plays, some of which have been performed. He has also published more than a hundred pieces on literature in periodicals and daily papers, and his work has been translated into Romanian, German, English, Hungarian, Slovenian, Slovakian and Macedonian.

He has been the head of the Bitef Theater since late 2013.

Ivana Bezarevic

Bitef teatar Beograd

Milos Latinovic

Milos Latinovic biography

Bitef Festival

writer

theater director

Minja Latinovic

Jasmina Latinovic

Mount Olympus play

Four Insanities book