Debut and early period

Dragojević made his directorial debut at the age of twenty-nine with 1992's Mi nismo anđeli whose screenplay he had previously written as well. What was essentially his FDU graduate thesis project, an irreverent youth comedy set in Belgrade about a geeky teenage girl who gets impregnated by a local lothario, turned out to be a huge cinema box-office hit in FR Yugoslavia and eventually in the rest of the former Yugoslav countries. During the film's promotional cycle in 1992 in FR Yugoslavia, young and telegenic Dragojević talked about not approaching Mi nismo anđeli artistically, i.e., consciously attempting to make a commercial movie via gambling on the teen comedy sub-genre that had no prior root in Yugoslavia.^[8] The upstart director further described his general approach to filmmaking as "trying to deliver professional cinematic offerings that resemble those from the West".^[8] Revealing a future career goal of continuing to direct but also to branch out into film production, he proudly stated his opposition to the "hideous" European auteur cinema while talking of his openness to commodification of film by wanting to work as a producer that oversees all aspects of a film in production, including hiring of a director as a contractor—a practice usually looked down upon in Europe.^[8] In his numerous media appearances, Dragojević talked up his movie by expressing a personal opinion that with Mi nismo anđeli he "delivered a solid product that could hardly have been better than it is considering the circumstances it was made in".^[8] In order to market the movie easier and more effectively in Yugoslavia, Dragojević even came up with a term "[Yugoslav] pink wave" as an anti-reference to the critically acclaimed and film-festival-celebrated social problem films of the Yugoslav Black Wave movement.^[8]

With his cinematic profile raised, in 1993, Dragojević was set to begin shooting a campy Almodóvaresque project tentatively titled Devedesete (The Nineties) about loyalty, jealousy, infidelity, and intimacy, with the original plan to shoot three separate endings and distribute three versions of the film. However, the financial implosion of the state-owned production studio Avala Film amid galloping inflation in FR Yugoslavia put an end to that project.^[9]

He was next hired along with Aleksandar Barišić [sr] to co-write a star vehicle for turbo-folk star Dragana Mirković that eventually became 1994's widely panned, Vladimir Živković-directed, romantic musical comedy Slatko od snova [sr]. Produced by influential Serbian show business agent-manager Raka Đokić [sr] whose clients included local top-selling young starlets of the folk music genre, the high-budget film was envisioned as twenty-five-year-old Dragana Mirković's cinematic platform meant to showcase her in a different light musically (more dance-pop less commercial folk) and thus increase her nationwide fame, much like Đokić had managed to do for his other famous client Lepa Brena several years earlier with her Hajde da se volimo film that grew into a hugely successful two-sequel money-generating franchise. Following the same pattern, Đokić again threw funds at prominent individuals from the local cinematography. Attracted by his money, numerous Serbian film and music industry people (including Dragojević, Branka Katić, Nebojša Bakočević, Rambo Amadeus, etc.) normally completely disassociated from and even ideologically opposed to the commercial folk music milieu flocked to do the film. Still, Slatko od snova was a box-office flop, only managing to become a camp guilty pleasure in the years since for its over-the-top excess.

The year 1994 also saw Dragojević write and direct a made-for-TV musical comedy Dva sata kvalitetnog TV programa ("Two Hours of Quality TV Programming") that aired on RTS television's third channel (3K) as part of their New Year's Eve 1995 programming. During next year, 1995, he directed a couple of episodes of the RTS series Otvorena vrata ("Open Doors").

Critical acclaim

Four years after his debut, Dragojević finally returned to directing feature films - this time completely breaking out of the youth genre to tackle the gruesome issues related to the ongoing Yugoslav Wars with a controversial drama containing elements of dark comedy, Lepa sela lepo gore, set in war-torn Bosnia. In addition to critical praise, the movie made a measurable commercial impact with more than 700,000 tickets sold domestically during its theatrical run.^[10] It also raised plenty of controversy across Europe over its ideological aspects: while many saw it as a powerful denouncement of war, others viewed it as "fascist cinema". The movie was even refused entry at the 1996 Venice Film Festival in addition to splitting the jury at the 1996 Thessaloniki International Film Festival that ultimately denied it the main prize despite being an overwhelming hit with the festival's audience.^[11] In North America, the film received more or less universal critical praise as Dragojević started getting courted by Hollywood almost immediately following the film's notable run on the festival circuit across the continent. He signed with William Morris Agency in late summer 1996 and got flown to Los Angeles where he had meetings with different studio heads.^[12] However, deeply dissatisfied with the scripts he was being offered, the director decided to come back home and do another film in Serbia. Therefore, the only tangible result of his brief flirtation with Hollywood on this occasion was the deal with Fox Lorber for the North American limited theatrical and home video distribution of Lepa sela lepo gore.

Back home on the political front, Dragojević supported the 1996-97 anti-government demonstrations by speaking at rallies and taking part in protest walks.

In 1998 Dragojević gave a bleak and critical portrayal of life in Slobodan Milošević's Serbia in Rane, which was another critical success for the young director. Loosely based on a true story, its plot follows the descent of two Belgrade youngsters from youthful exuberance into juvenile delinquency and hard criminality amid economic sanctions in FR Yugoslavia as their personal relationship transforms from close friendship to impulsively vicious rivalry. Released in May 1998 and, like most local productions, funded in large part by state institutions such as the state-run broadcaster RTS, the film elicited a stern response from the government elements that did not appreciate the director's brutal portrayal of Milošević's Serbia. Though they didn't ban the movie outright, they severely impacted its promotional cycle by refusing to run the film's ads in the state-run print and electronic media outlets.^[13] During the film's promotion on the festival circuit in North America, Dragojević expressed concern that he wouldn't be allowed to continue making films in Serbia under Milošević.

Those fears didn't turn out to be unfounded as his attempts to raise funds for the film adaptation of Dušan Kovačević's 1984 theater play St. George Slays the Dragon quickly got shot down.

Hollywood years

By 1999 Dragojević had enough of Serbia as the realization set in that he wouldn't be allowed to make films the way he wants to. He thus called on his Hollywood connections in order to once again explore his options across the pond and soon opened negotiations with Miramax as he again started to get some interest from America including a January screening of Rane at the Sundance Film Festival.^[14]

In late March 1999, a week into NATO's bombing of Serbia, Dragojević boarded a bus to Budapest with his wife and their two kids and went to New York City where he had a scheduled screening of Rane organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center at the Museum of Modern Art^[15][16] as part of its annual 28th New Director's/New Films series.^[17] The arrival to the country that's bombing his homeland put him in an odd and uncomfortable position and he acknowledged as much in interviews.^[18] He remained in the United States, travelling across the country with Rane that had several more festival screenings (including the San Francisco International Film Festival) while simultaneously negotiating terms with Miramax.

Return to Serbia

By late 2001, Dragojević returned to his homeland without having made a film in America. With producer Biljana Prvanović, he founded a production company Delirium Films [sr] in 2002.

In early 2003 he was announced as having been hired to develop a script for and eventually direct Beautiful Game, film based on Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical that had already been staged in London's West End.^[31] Along with a young American writer, Dragojević came up with an adapted screenplay from Ben Elton's story set in West Belfast during the 1970s about a group of Protestants and Catholics playing on the same football team as sectarian tensions surround them.^[32] However, in the end nothing came of it and years later Dragojević revealed in an interview that a row erupted with producers over his desire to remove two of the songs.^[30]

Around the same time, he also tried to get several projects off the ground such as the post-Holocaust novel After by Melvin Jules Bukiet with producer friend Julia Rosenberg as well as a proposed film based on Julian Barnes' 1992 novel The Porcupine, but was unable to raise funds for either of them. He also had an idea for a film called 1999 Cum in the Rye that was conceptualized as the final installment of his 1990s trilogy, but it also couldn't raise enough funding.

Suddenly, in summer 2004, he decided to make Mi nismo anđeli 2 [sr], the sequel to his greatest commercial hit after reportedly writing the screenplay from scratch in only three weeks.^[33] Shot in co-production with Pink International Company and released in early 2005, Mi nismo anđeli 2 broke box office records in Serbia with 700,000 admission tickets sold^[34] despite receiving bad reviews^[35][36] and even accusations of plagiarizing Stan Dragoti's 1989 comedy She's Out of Control.^[37] Dragojević himself on occasion referred to the film as an "open dialogue with the 1980s American B-comedy genre".^[38] Still, some observers saw his involvement in the project as an attempt at delivering a quick commercial box-office hit that would financially enable the projects he was really interested in making.^[23] Dragojević initially shied away from putting it in those terms,^[39] but several years later admitted as much explicitly in some interviews.^[40][41]

Around the same time Dragojević wrote one of the script drafts for Uroš Stojanović's film Čarlston za Ognjenku that he wrote as a "screwball comedy or postmodern Frank Capra", however, Stojanović ultimately went into a different direction with the film.^[38]

Right afterward, Dragojević started working on the third installment of the Mi nismo anđeli franchise. This resulted in Mi nismo anđeli 3: Rokenrol uzvraća udarac that he co-wrote with Dimitrije Vojnov [sr], but left directing duties to Petar Pašić [sr]. The approach taken was along the lines of Hollywood cinema - the script was offered to seven directors each of whom had to make a pitch with Pašić chosen in the end.^[42] Still, the reviews were even worse than for the previous sequel and the movie was a failure at the box office. Summing up the Mi nismo anđeli sequels several years later in 2009, Dragojević said:

You know, I fully understand and accept the animosity that both the industry people as well as the fans of the original feel towards the sequels. Anđeli 2 was made solely out of my desperate desire to raise funds for the project I fought for over three years - the film adaption of Julian Barnes' The Porcupine, a dark political thriller about communism and transition into capitalism. Anđeli 2 started doing really well at the theaters in 2005, but a bootleg copy soon appeared and although the film still made a nice profit, we didn't quite manage to raise the projected amount that was to serve as the initial funds for The Porcupine. I should also mention the veto slapped by the Bosnian representative at a Eurimages session, which pretty much killed any chance of The Porcupine being made. Furthermore, Anđeli 3 was part of the same package deal with Pink International Company that also included the 1999 project. However, after the film was shot, Pink Television changed their mind so that instead of being shown as a TV movie on Pink, Anđeli 3 went into theatrical release in 2006. Its failure at the box office, pretty much melted all the money Anđeli 2 made. Now, several years after the fact, I can say there's even some poetic justice in that: my motivation for making those two films wasn't just making money, but also enabling the creation of other serious movies. And since I ultimately failed to achieve that goal, any financial effect from Anđeli sequels is meaningless as far as I'm concerned. Those two films were my career detour that turned out to be a cul-de-sac. And I've only got myself to blame for that. Was I a fool? Definitely. But, at least I put up a fight. In Serbia, most filmmakers prefer to do nothing and live off yesterday's glory. I, for one, like making movies.^[40]

Dragojević was brought by John Cusack into the project titled Brand Hauser: Stuff Happens, which the Serb was slated to direct. However, the production company Nu Image led by Avi Lerner wanted the script re-written, a job that also went to Dragojević who in turn brought in Dimitrije Vojnov thus continuing their writing collaboration. The script that the duo came up with has been described by Dragojević as "a modern-day Dr. Strangelove". Dragojević then spent three months in Bulgaria doing preparation work with his set designer and director of photography, even flying out to locations in Morocco and Kazakhstan where parts of the movie were to be shot. Then weeks before the movie was scheduled to begin shooting, Cusack chimed in from London where he had been shooting 1408, voicing his displeasure with Dragojević's and Vojnov's version of the script and demanding a return to the original version co-written by Cusack himself. That spelled the end of Dragojević's involvement on the project as he decided to leave Bulgaria the next day. The movie ended up being shot with the original script and the new title War, Inc.. The only detail from Dragojević's script re-write that made it into the movie was the billboard for the fictional Democracy Light cigarette brand, which he previously used in his movie Rane.

In summer 2007, Dragojević started shooting the historical melodrama St. George Shoots the Dragon, an ambitious and expensive movie based on Dušan Kovačević's script about a love triangle against the backdrop of Serbian war effort in World War I. Funded in significant part by the governments of Serbia and Republika Srpska, the movie raised a lot of media interest in Serbia. It was by far the biggest movie project Dragojević had ever been a part of. The making of the movie, however, wasn't smooth. From Sergej Trifunović being fired as the lead and replaced with Milutin Milošević [sr] to cinematographer Miljen "Kreka" Kljaković walking off the project, the Serbian press detailed many of the on-set problems. In the end, as the film was about to go into theater release in Serbia in mid-March 2009 even Dragojević himself admitted personal disappointment with some of the choices he made during the shooting of the film in a lengthy interview for Vreme magazine. Among other things he said: "I invested so much energy into this film that I started to believe it would become a masterpiece, but it hasn't."^[40]

In late 2010, Dragan Bjelogrlić's film Montevideo, Bog te video that Dragojević co-wrote with Ranko Božić [sr] came out to positive reviews and great commercial success. Simultaneously, Dragojević's political engagement in the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), a part of the ruling coalition in Serbia, was announced.^[43][44]

In late October 2011, Dragojević's latest film Parada premiered. Covering the politically sensitive topic of gay rights in Serbia, the film generated some controversy leading up to the premiere. For his part, Dragojević boldly announced it as "the best film of my career",^[45] and soon expanded on the statement: "Saying that was the result of my satisfaction with the fact I succeeded in controlling a very risky thing - to continuously balance between the concepts of 'high comedy' and 'high drama' and to purposely impact the viewer's limbic system, thus manipulating and drawing emotions I deem necessary for every segment of the movie all of which results in the emotional and cognitive reaction I planned".^[46]