By Robert St. Martin
On Thursday, May 1, at the Laemmle Royal Theatre in West L.A. was a screening of new film When Santa Was a Communist (2024)– the first feature film of young Bosnian director Emir Kapetanović. Now Los Angeles-based, Kapetanović comes from a background of making socially engaged films, plays, cabarets, web series, hip-hop videos, street performances and stand-up comedy shows that have received national, and international, acclaim. His work turns art into activism as he highlights issues of social justice and reconciliation in his home country of Bosnia and abroad. When Santa Was a Communist presents us with a window into the complexities of religion and polemical politics in the ethnically diverse and divided country of Bosnia. This is a road movie that provides insights in the complex history of this country after the screening on Thursday as part of the 20th SEEfest film festival.
How is Christmas celebrated in Bosnia and other countries of the former Yugoslavia? Christmas was celebrated, but with variations depending on religious affiliation and regional traditions. Croats and Slovenes celebrated on December 25th, while Orthodox Christians, who used the old calendar, celebrated on January 7th. Additionally, some Muslims did not celebrate Christmas. In Serbia and other regions with a large Orthodox Christian population, Christmas was celebrated on January 7th, following the Julian calendar. During the communist period, New Year’s Eve became a major national celebration, even eclipsing Christmas in some ways.
The figure of Deda Mraz (Grandpa Frost), a Slavic version of Santa Claus, was embraced by the Communist government and became a symbol of the holiday. The whole popular use of Christmas trees and Santa Claus is not inherently traditional in every non-Orthodox country. It just became popular due to American cultural influence. During the time of Communism in Yugoslavia, Santa Claus simply came to visit at the end of the year for everyone – usually on January 1. In his film, Emir Kapetanovic draws on this background to highlight how the Bosnian war of the 1990s enflamed old societal divisions based on religion in Bosnia.
When Santa was a Communist makes fun of the issue of Santa Claus among children in former Yugoslavia and in the new reality of independent Bosnia-Herzegovina. The war between 1992 and 1995 that took place in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and with its bloody culmination in Bosnia and Herzegovina, can also be seen as a paradigm shift. Thus, as an innocent victim of religious and ethnic divisions, the “nobody’s” Santa Claus, or the “communist” and “Yugoslav” Santa Claus, who brings New Year’s gifts to children of all nations and nationalities, regardless of their parents’ religious beliefs, also fell. All the “players with the right to vote” saw in him the other who threatened their religious and national feelings. The “problem” of Santa Claus and his “role” in contemporary, post-war, formally federally organized, but essentially divided along national lines, was chosen by director Emir Kapetanović to highlight the ongoing tensions in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The premise of the script, co-written by Kapetanović and Vahid Duraković is essentially simple. An acting troupe led by manager Burhan (Mirvad Kurić), and also consisting of aging actor Jerry (Mirza Tanović), his young colleague Selma (Zana Marjanović) and musician Zoka (Miraj Grbić), have a New Year’s mini-tour in an unnamed divided town in Bosnia with a play about Santa Claus. A representative of the international organization that sponsored the project, Ella (Kristin Winters), is traveling with them. Although the children are looking forward to the arrival of Santa Claus and his gifts, the “village leaders” on both sides have something against it. Perhaps the only one who can push this thing forward is the “controversial businessman” Merdžo (Goran Kostić), but he probably has his own motives too.
The dramatic-theatrical origin of the script is seen in its structure divided into prolonged scenes or clusters of them, propelled by dialogues rather than action in any sense. The long exposition in the van in which they travel explains the state of affairs in the country, but also the relationships between the members of the troupe, while the position of the foreigner Ella provides a point of view with which a foreign, global audience can identify, which makes the film more universal and potentially more attractive to international festivals, and the details in further elaboration successfully “anchor” the story in the local color. Seen from another, domestic perspective, Ella’s character also functions as a commentary on “supervised independence” where the “supervisor” often has no idea about what he is supervising and those he is supervising.
Kapetanović comes from a background in theatre and the theatricality of the film is apparent in its structure and style. The humor and drama that also come naturally, both from the dialogue and from the situations in which the characters find themselves. The film captures the sense of absurdity in Bosnian life. Perhaps the most impressive example of which is the divided school whose students have two principals, two curricula, and even two shifts so that they do not come into contact with each other. The “deadpan” tone of When Santa Was a Communist makes the absurd become even more visible.
