How to Become a Hero

A Serbian filmmaker turns midlife crisis into a marathon finish line.

In the summer of 2005, Serbian filmmaker Mladen Matičević finds himself in a deep midlife crisis. He has just turned 40 and has come to the painful conclusion that the films he has made so far amount to little more than a series of failures. Overweight and out of shape, he does not know how to change his situation until he catches a television broadcast of the Rotterdam Marathon and feels an unexpected spark of inspiration.

He makes a bet with his best friend, who stakes 1,000 euros on Matičević failing to complete the Belgrade Marathon the following spring. Undeterred, Matičević signs up for the race, consults a personal trainer, overhauls his diet, and begins training in earnest, much to the amusement and scepticism of his family and friends. Throughout the process, he documents everything with a camera, transforming his struggle into the film How to Become a Hero, an anti-epic self-portrait narrated, directed and performed by Matičević himself.

The preparation takes an unexpected emotional turn when both his mother and father pass away during the months of training. Rather than abandon his goal, Matičević channels the grief and the idea of leaving this world without having achieved something to be proud of into renewed determination. Slowly his physical condition improves, his weight drops, and his outlook on life begins to shift.

The Belgrade International Marathon start signal looms as the culmination of an unconventional journey that touches on failure, grief, family, friendship, and the very human need to prove something to oneself. The film screened at IDFA 2007 as its International Premiere and went on to win the FIPRESCI Award and the Audience Award at the Bucharest Film Festival Documentary programme.