Wouter van Houwelingen

In a dying town in Serbia daydreamer Marko is on the verge of divorce from the love of his life, Ljubinka. When an old communist-era monument is removed from the Main Square, he comes up with the idea to build a monument to Michael Jackson in order to save his town and seduce his wife again. But the town’s mayor has his own plans.

A story that follows three generations of a rich Serbian Christian family in the 19th century in the north of the then Ottoman Empire in the city of Vranje, who are fighting for survival through various moral crises, facing decline. Forbidden love, intrigue, murder, arranged marriages, revenge, friendship and enmity between Serbs, Albanians and Turks and the endangered position of women at that time