Exit Through The Cuckoo's Nest

Nikola Ilić

The film recounts the experience of a reluctant soldier. Choosing never to pull the trigger, his defiance leads to military prison. Following a mental breakdown, he feigned mental illness, diverting his path from the combat zone, through a psychiatric institution, back to Belgrade on the very day that NATO begins bombing his country. The film's visual narrative is constructed from a blend of archival footage: some intimate, recorded by home video cameras, and others impersonal, sourced from security surveillance systems. Through meticulous manipulation of color palettes and tone shifts, the filmmaker reclaims these images, transforming them into a visual landscape against which he unfolds his own life story as a pacifist conscripted into the Balkan conflicts during the late 1990s.

Switzerland, Serbia 2024, '19

DIRECTOR: Nikola Ilić

CAMERA: Nikola Ilić

MONTAGE: Corina Schwingruber Ilić

MUSIC: Jan Godde, Aleksander Rančić

PRODUCERS: Laurin Merz

PRODUCTION: Hook Film, Kulturproduktion Gmbh

FESTIVALS & AWARDS:

Beldocs: Best Editing Award (2024)
Underhill FF: Best Short Film (2024)
KINEMASTIC ISFF: Jury Award (2024)
Curtocircuíto IFF: COSMOS Award for Best Innovative Film (2024)
Lublin FF: Best Short (2024)
Solothurner Filmtagen: Audience AWARD (2025)
FIPADOC: Best Short AWARD (2025)
Clermont Ferrand: Best Documentary; Festival Connexion AWARD (2025)
Visions du Réel (2024)
Beijing International Short FF (2024)
Festival Internacional de Curtas Metragens de São Paulo (2024)
Riga IFF (2024)
Dokufest (2024)
Message to Man IFF (2024)

Nikola Ilić

Originally from Belgrade (Serbia), Nikola Ilić is an independent filmmaker and cinematographer interested in creative and observational documentary film-making. Since 2007, Nikola Ilić resides between Switzerland and Serbia, completing his studies at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts while working professionally since more than a decade. His short films have been awarded and shown at many Festivals around the globe. His first feature Doc (Co-Directed with Corina Schwingruber Ilić) won a DOK Leipzig Golden Dove among other awards. He‘s the DOP of the well received shorts All Inclusive (2018) and Been There ((2023) both directed by Corina Schwingruber Ilić. Tree times nominated for the Swiss Film Award. Two times winner of Zürich Film Award and Film Award of Central Switzerland. Co-founder of Pro Short Association. Member of the Swiss and European Film Academy.

Exit Through The Cuckoo's Nest

Nikola Ilić

Nikola Ilić

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