Position of Woman as an Author in Serbian Cinematography

Film criticism and film theory frequently refer to an author-or auteur-as the individual that holds a key role and maintains control over the process of creating and shaping a film, wherein this role is most commonly ascribed to the film's director (Caughie 2013). Yet films are, doubtlessly, the fruit of a collaborative creative process so that it could in fact, refer to a group authorship. The Serbian Law on Cinematography (2011) recognizes the acting, producing, author, and technical crew as workers in film. The team of auteurs includes individuals who carry out the responsibilities of film director, director of photography, screenwriter, score composer, production designer, and editor. It would be wise to recall that numerous cinematographies have, at various times in history, included additional positions beyond those abovementioned in the description (such as costume designers). The chosen definition is characteristic for Serbian cinematography for the greatest part of its history (Volk 1983; Obradović et al. 1996; Milenković-Tatić 2001). For all of these reasons, the subject matter of this paper will primarily analyze the broad spectrum of female authors as members of the auteur team, with a particular focus on female directors. Serbian cinematography encompasses feature-length films produced independently or in co-production with a film company headquartered within the territory of Serbia as an independent state, or within a constituent part of larger, no longer existing country. For the purposes of analysis, a further requirement is for the films mentioned to have been publically screened. This definition is not only supported by the Law on Cinematography, but is also grounded in film history (Obradović et al.1996; Milenković-Tatić 2001). It is important to mention that, due to the volume and depth of this subject matter, the concept of Serbian cinematography is operationalized accordingly so that the focus of this research will be placed on the industrial and production side of filmmaking. Doing so does not deny the existence nor the value of other film genres in Serbian cinematography (such as documentaries, shorts, experimental films, films for specific purposes, and others), but rather narrows down the subject matter in order to respond to a specific research task. Furthermore, it is important to mention that Serbia held its first cinematic screening in 1896-a mere six months after the Brothers Lumiere introduced the very first 'film' in world history. As an independent state or as a constitutional member of a larger country, Serbia's name and geopolitical identity have gone through nine full iterations. Consequently, the focus of this paper takes into account Serbian cinematography, but not Serbian film itself, as the latter's concept is the subject of considerable theoretical dispute. Naturally, it is worth recalling that Serbian cinematography is a concept that is presumed to be linked with, above all, the concept of Yugoslav cinematography, but also with the more narrow scope of the cinematographies of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Democratic Federal Yugoslavia, the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. Coproductions are understood to be movies filmed both with inter-republic cooperation and in collaboration with foreign partners, that is, film work co-financed by producers from both Serbia and those now independent nations which had, at some point in time, belonged to the same country as Serbia. As in the previous two definitions, this one also represents the transposing of legal provisions of the Law on Cinematography in a broader historical period.