Doctor Ray and the Devils (2012)

Doktor Rej i đavoli (Serbian Cyrillic: Доктор Реј и ђаволи, Doctor Ray and the Devils) is a 2012 Serbian film directed by Dinko Tucaković. It is co-written by Tucaković and Saša Radojević with input from Dimitrije Vojnov.

The film's plot centers on famous American director Nicholas Ray's 1960s stay in SFR Yugoslavia upon the invitation of Ratko Dražević, the head of Avala Film studio and former Yugoslav state security operative. It is loosely based on actual events. Since, according to Tucaković, the story of Ray's Belgrade stay is "quite foggy", the film's characters were treated "more as a myth than as a document". Additionally, since Dražević's specific biographical info is entirely sketchy and mostly based on anecdotes, actor who plays him in the movie, Dragan Bjelogrlić, said that his portrayal is "based on legend rather than biography".

Additional actual figures that appear as characters in the film are film director D. W. Griffith, film star Orson Welles and his partner Oja Kodar, French actress Jeanne Moreau, Serbian writer Borislav Mihajlović Mihiz, Bosnian filmmaker Bahrudin Čengić, American film producer Samuel Bronston, and Ray's third wife Betty Utey. Also, some actual figures are thinly disguised and hinted at behind aliases because the filmmakers didn't get a permission from their families to use them in the film. The character of Aleksa is Serbian film director Saša Petrović, the character of Zlatan is Serbian writer Slobodan Selenić, while Ivica is Croatian film producer Branko Lustig.

The feature film (which is part of a larger project that also includes a yet to be made documentary and a yet to be released book) premiered on 4 March 2012 on the closing night of the 2012 FEST. The film goes into general theatrical release in Serbia from 27 September 2012.

Synopsis

In 1964 the celebrated director Nicholas Ray, who was the toast of Hollywood only a decade earlier having made the iconic picture Rebel Without a Cause starring James Dean, arrives to communist Yugoslavia desperately trying to re-ignite his spiraling career. Problems with drugs and alcohol have made him fall on hard times, but his name still holds enough cache to get him a lucrative offer of shooting a movie with Yugoslav state funds - the spectacular costumed horror-drama based on Dylan Thomas' script The Doctor and the Devils.

Actors