Documentary on ‘Rocky’ idol in Serbia set to compete for Oscar

New York: Director Barry Avrich has made a new documentary on the residents of a Serbian village, who have made a statue of Sylevester Stallone’s famous character Rocky Balboa. The director, who made "The Last Mogul" documentary about the late Lew Wasserman, was struck with the idea for the documentary after reading a newspaper story about the small Serbian hamlet, whose destitute residents were trying to reverse 4,000 years of bad luck by building the statue. "I went there thinking I would make `Borat`,” the New York Post quoted the director as saying But when he got there and saw how sincere the villagers were, Avrich no longer found them so funny. "Their statue is made of cement because they couldn`t afford bronze. The town had written Sylvester Stallone for years, but he knew nothing about it," said Avrich. When Avrich interviewed the ‘Rocky’ star, Stallone was moved by their devotion to his 1976 movie, and agreed to make a video that was played for the huge crowd at the statue`s unveiling during a three-day festival. And now, Avrich`s film ‘Amerika Idol’ is playing the festival circuit, and just had it’s Oscar-qualifying run at the IFC Center Theater. ANI