Who's That Singing Over There - Production

Production

Centar Film, the state-owned production house, wanted to make Dušan Kovačević's script into a movie since 1978.

Reportedly, Goran Paskaljević was their first choice to direct the movie. He was supposed to shoot the Kovačević script as a contemporary-themed 50-minute TV movie set in the late 1970s on a public transport bus with the central character being an old man (played by Mija Aleksić) who is headed to visit his son in the army. However, Paskaljević decided to leave the project and shoot the feature film Zemaljski dani teku instead. The job then went to 33-year-old Slobodan Šijan who had never shot a feature film up to that point.

The movie was made on a budget of US$130,000 and had 21 shooting days. The filming began on 3 April 1980. Almost entire film was shot in Deliblatska Peščara.

The final bombing scene was originally meant to include wild animals from the bombed Belgrade Zoo roaming through the city's downtown, which indeed happened during actual 6 April 1941 Luftwaffe air-raids; in fact, an old newspaper article documenting this bizarre occurrence served as inspiration for the author Dušan Kovačević to include it in the film. However, at the time of movie's filming in 1980, Tito died, which resulted in the extended mourning period that effectively canceled all entertainment activities in the country - including the Italian circus tour that was meant to provide the animals for the scene. Since working with untrained zoo animals was deemed too dangerous, the film-makers reluctantly had to abandon the idea at the time. However, the idea was used in the opening scene of Underground (1995), some 15 years later.

In 2004 the film was turned into a ballet by the National Theatre in Belgrade. The music is again by Vojislav Kostić and the choreography is made by Staša Zurovac.