Boris Malagurski

Boris Malagurski (Serbian Cyrillic: Борис Малагурски) (born 11 August 1988) is a Serbian-Canadian film director, producer, screenwriter, television host and activist. He is the director and producer of documentary films such as The Weight of Chains and Belgrade.

He is the owner of the Malagurski Cinema production company, based in Vancouver, Canada.

Life and work
Born to Prof. Dr. Sc. Branislav Malagurski and Slavica Malagurski, Boris grew up in the northern Serbian town of Subotica. In an interview for Literární noviny, Prague's cultural and political journal, Malagurski said that his last name originates from the Polish town of Mała Góra, noting that in the 17th century, a soldier from that town fought under the command of John III Sobieski against the Turks in the Battle of Senta and afterwards decided to stay in Subotica, which is now in the Serbian province of Vojvodina.

Since Malagurski emigrated to Canada in 2005, he identifies himself as Serbian Canadian. Malagurski made a documentary film about his move from Serbia called The Canada Project. The film was shown on Serbian National Television, as a part of Mira Adanja-Polak's TV show.

According to the Malagurski Cinema website, Malagurski has been a columnist with Kišobran (lit. Umbrella), a Serbian language monthly newspaper published in Vancouver. He was also the founding president of the Serbian Youth League in Vancouver in February 2008.

Kosovo: Can You Imagine?
Malagurski's documentary film Kosovo: Can You Imagine? (2009) dealt with human rights of Serbs in Kosovo. The Pečat Magazine described the film as "An objective, authentic journalistic approach to the issue, as well as brave work on the field, make this documentary an accomplishment envied by any author". The film features several prominent experts regarding the subject of the Balkans, such as Ret. Maj. Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, Fmr. Amb. James Byron Bissett and Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, who help analyze the state in which the disputed province finds itself since declaring secession from Serbia. In realizing this film project, Malagurski received help from Canadian author and journalist Scott Taylor and Princess Linda, from the House of Karađorđević, as well as UNMIK official John Hawthorne and Irish diplomat Mary Walsh, to which the film is dedicated. In December 2009, the documentary had its broadcast premiere on Russia Today TV network.

The Weight of Chains
His film The Weight of Chains (2010) deals with Western involvement in the breakup of Yugoslavia. The film is supported by the Global Research Institute and tackles the question of why Yugoslavia fell apart, the answer of which, according to the author, is far from how the media present it. Malagurski also examines the current economic situation in the former Yugoslav republics and offers a different perspective on the major political and social issues facing the people living in that part of the world.

The Belgrade-based daily newspaper Blic noted that this film "exploded on the Internet" and became the topic of many blogs and discussions. The Politika newspaper wrote that over a million people saw The Weight of Chains over the Internet. The film also found itself in the official selections of a number of film festivals and was shown in cinemas in the United States, Australia and Canada. In October 2011, the film was broadcast on RTV BN, and on RTRS in January 2012. The Croatian media portal Javno.hr described "The Weight of Chains" as a "controversial film" and that it explores "the causes and circumstances that lead to the breakup of Yugoslavia and the wars in that region". As of 2012, the film is distributed worldwide by Journeyman Pictures. When the journalist Miroslav Filipović asked Malagurski whether he'd agree that his film is "one-sided" and "too Serbian", Malagurski answered that it can only be both "too Serbian" and "too Croatian" as it's "in the interest of the people of that part of the world".

Sequel
In April 2012, Malagurski announced the production of a sequel, The Weight of Chains 2, which will, according to the author, continue where the first part ended. The film will include interviews with Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone, Carla Del Ponte, R. James Woolsey, Ivo Josipović, Vuk Jeremić, Michael Ruppert, Mlađan Dinkić, Michael Parenti, Miroslav Lazanski and many others.

Belgrade
In 2011 Malagurski started working on a documentary film about Belgrade, in which he aims to capture the spirit of the Serbian capital. The film is considered the first feature documentary about Belgrade. The author claims that Belgrade boasts a unique quality and energy, in spite of the fact that it was destroyed and rebuilt over 40 times in its history and that the greatest attraction of the city are the citizens themselves.

The documentary features Boris Malagurski on-screen, including interviews with Belgraders, such as tennis player Novak Djokovic, and is in English. In an interview for Večernje novosti, a Belgrade-based daily newspaper, Malagurski said that he made a break from producing the film while working on a documentary called "The Presumption of Justice", but that he still aims to show the capital of Serbia in the best possible way, as well as to inspire foreigners to come and visit it.

Revolution
As of January 2013, Boris Malagurski is the host of "Revolution" (Револуција), a weekly TV show on Happy TV, a Serbian television network with national frequency. According to Malagurski, the goal of the show, which features documentary segments and interviews with state officials, political and economic analysts, psychologists, foreign experts and ordinary citizens of Serbia, is to come up with an answer to the question - why do people still have a low standard of living and what can be done to change that. Malagurski doesn't solve issues in the TV show, but aims to provoke initiative so that the citizens can move forward.

Media and lectures
The Serbian newspaper "Politika", the oldest daily in the Balkans, described Malagurski as the "Serbian Michael Moore", followed by the same description by Press and many other media outlets in the region.

Malagurski regularly gives keynote speeches about his film making tactics and current social, political and economic issues in the Balkans. Recently, he spoke several times at the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Belgrade, at the Novi Sad Law School and the University of Novi Sad Medical School and Faculty of Philosophy, as well as the Management Faculty in Sremski Karlovci. He also gave a speech on "guerilla filmmaking" at the Megatrend University in Belgrade

Malagurski took part in many conferences, including the "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" conference organized by the Belgrade Youth Office of the City Government of Belgrade and the "Trustees of Kosovo Thought" conference at the 57th International Book Fair in Belgrade organized by the Office for Kosovo and Metohija of the Government of the Republic of Serbia. In April 2012, Malagurski delivered a presentation at Google in Silicon Valley that dealt with raising funds for film projects.

Activism
When Kosovo declared independence in 2008, Malagurski spoke at a protest which drew a crowd of hundreds. In 2009 he was named among the "Top 30 Under 30 Serbian Young Entrepreneurs" at the Serbian International Diaspora Youth Leadership Conference, chaired by Tijana Arnautović, while in 2011, Malagurski was a keynote speaker at the annual Conference. Occasionally, Malagurski writes articles for the political magazine New Serbian political thought  and produces video reports for the Centre for Research on Globalization.

In October 2011, Malagurski showed his film "The Weight of Chains" at the Jarinje barricades on the Kosovo-Serbia border, which he claims was a show of support for the Serbs' cause in fighting for their rights in the disputed province. In June 2012, Malagurski took part in a protest in front of the building of Radio Television Serbia that called for an end to "organized media darkness" in Serbia and requested the airing of Malagurski's film "The Weight of Chains" on Serbia's public broadcaster. In front of hundreds of protesters, Malagurski stated that Aleksandar Tijanić, the director of RTS, told Malagurski that the film received a positive review, but couldn't be aired on RTS because it was allegedly already aired on Happy TV, which Malagurski claimed wasn't true. Malagurski provided signed and stamped documentation from Happy TV in which it's written that Happy TV never aired "The Weight of Chains". On October 24, 2012, exactly 100 years after the Battle of Kumanovo, Malagurski, together with other Serbian activists, organized a "Thanksgiving walk of remembrance" that started in front of the Government of Serbia building and continued to the Novo groblje cemetery complex where the organizers laid a wreath on the tomb of Radomir Putnik, the Chief of the General Staff of the Serbian army in the Balkan Wars.

Awards and screenings

 * Young Authors of Europe, 2005 - for "The Canada Project" at the International Film Festival in Palić, Serbia
 * Young Authors of Europe, 2005 - for "Vreme Je" at the International Film Festival in Palić, Serbia
 * Winner, Silver Palm Award, 2009 - for "Kosovo: Can You Imagine?" at the Mexico International Film Festival 2009, Rosarito, Mexico
 * Official Selection, 2009 - for "Kosovo: Can You Imagine?" at the BridgeFest International Film Festival, East Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina
 * Official Selection, 2011 - for "The Weight of Chains" at the BELDOCS International Feature Documentary Film Festival, Belgrade, Serbia
 * Official Selection, 2011 - for "The Weight of Chains" at the Raindance Film Festival, London, United Kingdom
 * Official Selection, 2011 - for "The Weight of Chains" at the Moving Images Film Festival, Toronto, Canada
 * Official Selection, 2011 - for "The Weight of Chains" at the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, Havana, Cuba
 * Official Selection, 2011 - for "The Weight of Chains" at the Ann Arbor Docu Fest, Ann Arbor, United States of America

Official websites

 * Official website of Malagurski Cinema
 * Official website of "Kosovo | Can You Imagine?"
 * Official website of "The Weight of Chains"
 * Official website of "Belgrade"
 * Official website of "Belgrade"

Print media interviews

 * Good People in Evil Times Politika, August 2010
 * New Documentary by the Serbian Michael Moore Press, May 2011
 * The Unbearable Lightness of the Truth Pečat Magazine, May 2011
 * Let's tickle The Imagination of Tourists Politika, October 2011
 * Capitalism is Robbing Serbia Blic, December 2011
 * People are Blind from Illusions Večernje novosti, December 2011
 * Yugoslavia was a Predecessor of the EU Javno, February 2012
 * No Retreat, No Surrender Politika, April 2012
 * I Want to Work in Serbia Večernje novosti, June 2012
 * A Film About Brice Taton Politika, June 2012