Who are the new CHARACTERS? Will Luka and Una RECONCILE? What awaits UROS IN THE NEXT SEASON?

The first part of this year’s TV season is slowly coming to an end, and we are already looking forward to the fall. Not because we are one of those melancholic people who would immediately change the beauty of summer and the sea for all the colors and soothing autumn rain, but because this fall, after a long break, the long-awaited BESA 2 is coming!

That is exactly why we have prepared a real treat for all our readers of the FILM and TV portal and the fans of the popular crime drama. The exclusive interview is with TEA KOROLIJA, director of the ADRENALIN production house, which brought us the most popular regional series BESA and numerous other TV programs, including the adaptation of The Chase quiz, which has been broadcasted on RTS for eight years. We talked to Tea Korolija while the preparations for the shooting of the second season of the BESA series in Belgrade are in their photo finish.

How is the filming of the second season of the series “Besa” progressing? What is over, and what awaits you?

We are now in the final phase of preparations for the continuation of the shooting of the second season of BESA in Belgrade. I hope that this part of the filming will be less stressful due to the epidemiological circumstances, although I am happy and proud of how we coped and resisted all obstacles during the filming in Montenegro. It was hard in the sense – someone from the team got sick, someone had to go into self-isolation, curfew, problems of gathering at certain locations, but everything worked out. Here, I must emphasize the great help and support of our Montenegrin colleagues from Natenane Production, primarily Dusan Kovacevic, who, in addition to his acting role in Besa, also had the role of the Montenegrin co-producer.

We have also completed preparations for filming in a Baltic country, where we will shoot after Belgrade due to all the circumstances surrounding the epidemiological situation in Europe. From the first season, we wanted Besa to have many different and attractive locations, which give our story authenticity and atmosphere, and in the second season, we tried to go a step further and introduce some totally new and different landscapes.

How will this season differ from the first? You face a big challenge ahead since you have to surpass everything that the first series brought us.

I agree, the first season really won the widest audience in the region, and now we have a difficult task to beat ourselves… We tried in various segments, and above all at the level of story and characters. Namely, the script is more modern, more complex, and brings even more interesting plots. There are more storylines than in the first season. First of all, because in addition to the fate of the main characters, Uros, Dardan, and Petrit, Luka, Driton and Ilir are now gaining great importance, as members of the younger generation. We show the conflict between the traditional and the modern on various levels, but family is still at the center of all the conflicts, revenge, and aspirations of the heroes of our series. Now, the so-called “investigation” line of the story has gained more layers because its actors are much more complexly written…

What are some of the main courses of action that we will see in Besa 2?

The plot of the second season of Besa begins in real-time, two years later… We find our three main characters displaced in unexpected circumstances and situations. But now, in parallel, we follow the destinies of several main characters, who intertwine on different levels, even though they are geographically separated. That is why we decided on some completely new locations, which have not been seen in our domestic series so far.

Do we see Rasa Bukvic as Uros in the sequel, and will we see the continuation of Luka and Una’s story?

In the role of Uros Peric, Rasa is an organic part of our series – the DNA of Besa. An ordinary man who did not leave any of the spectators across the region indifferent… Considering what will happen to Uros in the sequel, the viewers will cheer for him even more…

Una and Luka have been the true romance of Besa since their first meeting, so it is interesting to see whether their lyrical love story will resist the suffering, revenge, and evil that surrounds them.

In the previous season, you enriched our TV experience with great foreign actors, above all I mean the Albanian actors, who gave Besa the special weight. What can we expect this year? Will there be more similar surprises?

In addition to Rasa Bukvic, Milos Timotijevic, Arben Bajraktaraj, Hana Selimovic, Milica Gojkovic, Milan Maric, which you will get to watch in the new 10 sequels, the audience will have the opportunity to meet new characters. Among the new actors (and there are many) the favorites are Florist Bajgora who played in the series “Gangs of London“, Katarina Chas who starred in the hit film “The Wolf of Wall Street” and the popular series “Berlin Station“, as well as Gezim Zherka and Dea Bajaziti who will surely win you over…

How did corona affect the shooting? What does working on a set look like?

Well, corona made the realization of our project quite complicated, primarily due to the delay in the start of production. It’s very hard when you have so many foreign actors, from a lot of different countries, and you’re shooting in different countries…. A lot needs to be organized, and the priority is to protect the team, not to disrupt the work plan, etc. I think we have held up well so far, but the fact is that most of the filming in Montenegro was in the exterior. As in everything, you should always be a little lucky, and we have certainly taken all protection measures, and we will be strict until the end, although most of the actors and crew will be vaccinated by the beginning of filming. I hope that the filming will take place in a slightly more relaxed atmosphere in the future.

Who participated in the elaboration of ideas and writing the script this time?

In the second season, in addition to Tony Jordan, Igor Stoimenov is the creator and showrunner of the series. Igor led the screenwriting team as the main writer, in which Mladen Maticevic and Vuk Rsumovic participated as screenwriters and Dusan Bulic as an associate on the screenplay.

How satisfied are you with the Arabic version of “Besa”? Did you and your colleagues have a chance to watch an episode?

The Arabic version is great. They adapted the original idea of ​​Srdjan Shaper and reworked our script into a 10-episode version. They tried to follow our visual style, their locations are very similar to ours. We must especially praise their action scenes, which are more attractive compared to our original version, which of course has to do exclusively with the budget of their version. The Arabic version of Besa was also rated by their viewers as extremely good.

Blood Oath Trailer from MBC Studios on Vimeo.

The original interview was published at FilmiTV.