July 2012 – Page 2 – Bill's Blog

Above is a photo of the Hotel Petrus in Paraćin, Serbia. We stayed in the hotel during the shooting of the movie. What an architectural classic of Socialist Realism! Besides being an awesome monument to the communist era of Yugoslavia, it was a nice place to stay. It is located on the river and has a very pleasant restaurant overlooking the river. Another cool thing about the hotel are the hallways, that go in a complete circle on each floor. I will never stay in a hotel like that again. The stairs and elevators are in the center of the tower. I would have loved to explored the roof and basement of this hotel. I made a video (link here) of a bit of the inside of the hotel.

The city had a great vibe. There is a walking street nearby and lots of people were out and about. Across the river the hotel, there is a nice Serbian Orthodox Church (St. ) and another Socialist classic, this fine statue commemorating 30 years of “freedom” after World War II. The communist youth figures are holding up a bright red flame. They look more like Atlas than figures happy to be free. The concrete, box apartments in the background complete the scene.

A nice little town we hope to visit again.

Last week I had the opportunity to act in Montevideo: Taste of a Dream. This is a project being done by the Intermedia Network and includes a book, documentary, television series and two feature films. It is the story of Jugoslavia’s participation in the inaugural soccer World Cup of 1930. It follows the formation of the team in Belgrade, to them eventually playing Brazil in their first game of the tournament. My role was the American Radio Commentator and with luck, a few bit parts will appear in the final edit of the movie. This is the sequel they are filming and it should come out in December or January.

The soccer scenes are taking place in Paraćin, Serbia, a small city (population 25,000) located in central, south, Serbia. The producers have renovated the local soccer stadium to look like Centennial Stadium of Montevideo, Uruguay in 1930, the host to the World Cup. I love sports and Serbia, so this project was a labor of love. The movie people treated me and my family very kindly and I had a great two days of filming. It was extremely hot and the make up people worked hard to keep me sweat-free for my parts. I realized how much goes into filming a movie, especially a period piece with hundreds of extras. A great amount of patience and attention to detail needs to go into it.

Owen, Ollie, and Ocean played a lot of soccer on the field during the filming in the bleachers.

I would like to thank Vlada, Dragan, and Srdjan for their patience with me and their hospitality. It is a worthy project and I am happy they are bringing this obscure story to modern audiences and so it does not become lost. I’ll be blogging a bit more about this project as it continues.