She brought a gun to a royal ball. History forgot her name.
A biopic about Jelena 'Ilka' Markovic, a woman who unsuccessfully tried to assassinate the Serbian prince Milan Obrenovic in order to revenge her husband, who was previously executed for taking part in the Topola uprising of 1877.
Acting
Ninković plays Ilka's desperation like a wound that won't close.
Production
TV budget, but the 19th-century Serbia feels authentically suffocating.
Director
Zdravko Šotra
Nataša Ninković
Jelena Ilka Marković
Hadži Nenad Maričić
Raša Milošević
Boris Komnenić
Ministar vojni Grujić
Danijela 'Nela' Mihailović
Lujza
Sloboda Mićalović
Draga
Ana Maljević
Knićanka
Dragomir Čumić
Doktor Mirković
Nikola Bulatović
Svetozar Marković
Vahidin Prelić
Pera Todorović
Miodrag Radovanović
Stevča Mihajlović
Ljubomir Bandović
Knjaz Milan Obrenović
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Topola uprising of 1877 was crushed in days; Ilka's revenge plot came six years later, by which time most had moved on.
In Serbia, Ilka Marković remains virtually unknown—this TV movie is one of the only screen depictions of her, made during a brief post-Milošević interest in rehabilitating nationalist heroines.
CS
