In Belgrade, Art Meets Faith: The Premiere of People of Christ. Our Time with Kusturica and Global Voices

On September 18 in Belgrade I received two invitations, one for a solemn evening at the Embassy of the largest country in the world, and the second, which I could not avoid attending: the press premiere of the film “People of Christ. Our Time”, whose credits among the team of creators include my beloved Emir Kusturica, Jovan Markovic, and names of people from Ukraine, Italy and Serbia who are unknown to me, but also catch my attention.

By Tanja Stankovic

Already from the entrance to our legendary “Yugoslav Film Library” I saw many people who personify today’s Serbia and the Balkans. Politicians chatted with renowned champions, scientists with my journalist colleagues, and ladies in gala dresses accentuated the solemnity of the event.

When I confirmed my accreditation, I paid attention to the media list: colleagues had arrived from Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, France, Macedonia, Republika Srpska, the United States, Austria, Bulgaria, Great Britain and Russia; it had been a long time since such a large number of writers and filmmakers had gathered for a film premiere in Belgrade.

When Kusturica appeared, it looked like a wave of people with TV cameras was going to crush the walls of the Kinoteka!

And unexpectedly, a group of people dressed in black entered the hall: the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, His Holiness Porfirios, was arriving at the premiere of the film!

With his speech and blessing began the screening and the film’s journey into the audience.

From the first frames until the end of the film, when the audience rose from their seats with a standing ovation, I lived together with Kievites and Genoese, Romans and Belgraders, Muscovites and Novosadovites, all the heroes of the film, I lived every frame and every word of this film document.

I am not going to tell it again, I hope that everyone will be able to see it. Later I want to chronicle everything that the heroes and creators of the film said immediately after the premiere screening, in their meeting with the audience.

First we heard from the moderator of the premiere, the litterateur, journalist and translator Ljubinka Milincic: I am honored to begin our conversation by feeling the first emotions of this narration.

“How much time is there, what is our time?” asks our contemporary, Russian poet Vlad Malenko, in the first frames of the film. This is an eternal question that probably every one of us often asks himself: the question of our origin, the question of living in time, the question of continuation, the question of eternity. But I must say that I was struck by the sentence said by the author at the beginning of the story: “I was born in Kiev. And Kiev was stolen from me, along with my homeland! To be more exact, it was blatantly snatched from me, as if the ground was torn out from under my feet.” The words “I was born in Belgrade”, “I was born in Moscow”, “I was born in Paris” or “I was born in any other city in the world” sound familiar to any inhabitant of the planet. But the phrase, spoken by the author at the beginning of the film, reveals a completely different meaning: “I was born in Kiev, the cradle of Russia. I was born in Kiev, which saw the birth of the Orthodox people and gave the great Russian power. I was born in Kiev, where the relics of the greatest Orthodox saints rest. I was born in Kiev, which was taken away from me by those who do not see in this holy name more than a geographical term. I was born in Kiev, where today there is no place for those who feel their origin, their name and the burden they bear for their glorious past of relatives and the shameful present of outsiders who have taken over this city.”

I wonder how a person who today has to hide his name in order not to expose to death his relatives who stayed in the Motherland, painfully saying, “I was born and grew up in Kiev and Kiev was stolen from me!” – Can he bear all this heavy burden, where is he going, what is he thinking about, what is he looking for, what is he living? And the answer to these questions is the film itself, the journey of our hero: he walks with God, he lives in God, and he feels that his God may be stolen from him, as his city, his homeland, has been stolen from him. And his journey in this film – the discovery to the viewer of wonderful people from different countries of the world, people of Christ – raises another terrible question for all of us: “Can we, the people of Christ today, be preserved, preserved in God? Can we still be human beings?”.

I remember, I think 15 years ago, I translated Elena Chudinova’s book “The Mosque of Our Lady of Paris”. The argument of this book is that Christianity started in the catacombs and will return to the catacombs. Today I wonder if this is the beginning of the journey back to the catacombs. It reminds me irresistibly of a song Olga Berggolts wrote in besieged Leningrad. It went, “Tick-tock of the metronome, tick-tock of the metronome, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.” It sounded day and night, and for the people of Leningrad, who had no television and no internet to hear the news, this ‘tick-tock’ meant that Leningrad was alive, that it had not been invaded by the fascists and that no one would ever invade it.

It seems to me that this film, its energy, affirms to us that Christian Orthodoxy is alive, will survive and will remain, will remain with God. And now I would like to ask one of the producers of the film, Mirko Radenovic, to speak.

Producer Mirko Radenovic:

A few words about the film… I want to tell you how we came up with the idea of making this film. Sitting in Belgrade with my friends from Kiev, discussing everything that is happening in Kiev and in the world, I realized that we experienced similar things in the Balkans, and it is happening now in Kiev and in many other countries in the world. God is being killed not only with machine guns and cannons, but also with words in numerous global media and substitutions of culture, spirituality, substitutions of truth itself. We remember the NATO bombing, our Kosovo, and the example of Montenegro a few years ago. These are great challenges. With our friends from Ukraine and Serbia, we decided to turn to our friend, Professor Emir Kusturica, to maybe get some answers, his opinion on what is happening in the world today. He gave us some good advice: it is important that people from different cities and countries tell us what is happening today, that Ukrainians tell us about what is happening in Ukraine, Serbs about Serbia, Italians about the life of Italians and Russians about Russia. And we started to work. It was a collective work, cooperation of many people from different countries. We invested our energy, part of ourselves, and I am glad for the reaction of the audience, for the ovation that was heard in this hall at the end of the film. Now the film is being translated into the main languages of the world, and I wish our film a great journey around the planet and a long life in the souls of the good people of different countries. I thank all the creative team of the participants and my colleagues in the organization of the film production: Maxim Korsak and Evgeny Golik.

Jovan Markovic, one of the founders of the Yugoslav Film School, screenwriter and writer, then took the floor:

“I must say at the outset that you have introduced me as a director and screenwriter. However, this is a collective work of the creative team, and I joined it when the basis of the project was already formed. I joined this incredible film adventure with all my soul and my experience, we formed a creative fraternity, a family of creators, and I was appointed director and screenwriter, probably because I am the eldest of them. I thank everyone for this strong cooperation. Our task is to rely on good people, to be good people ourselves, and this is our struggle, for ourselves and for God in us, the struggle for the human being in ourselves.”

Msgr. Irinej of Bacsk:

“Thank you for the trust of the international creative fraternity that has created a film with such a name, ”People of Christ. Our Time.” For me it has been an honor and a blessing to shoot in this work. This film is so eloquent, touching and truthful, full of such feeling, that it can be created only by people from the Orthodox world, especially from the world originating from Holy Rus, from Kiev, which is the mother of Russian cities. Of course, in different countries there are people so spiritually awakened that they can create something like this, there are not many of them, and today I have seen and heard Christians.”

I have had the opportunity to see films by Tarkovsky and many other greats, and this film is one of them, and one of the ones that has inspired and moved me the most today. I don’t think this film needs any commentary or praise. It speaks for itself, but it also tells us all the truth about our world, our times and ourselves. We can say that there are no forces of evil, including this unfortunate man who portrays the head of the Ukrainian state, or unfortunately of the former state, who I am sure does not believe in the Jewish, Christian or Muslim faith, and who has gone to war against God. There have been many persecutors of Christians, destroyers, torturers and villains, from Nero and Diocletian to our days, but no one has ever dared to abolish the Church as such. And this wretch has done it. The modern world, as this film shows us, is really a world of Christ and Antichrist. Of course, this is not a new reality, it has been so for 2000 years of Christian history. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but today I believe it is becoming evident before our eyes – spiritually, and now manifesting itself physically. We’ve seen these unbelievably horrible scenes in the movies – the abuse of people just because they orthodoxly believe in God. And now the rampant godless people of Kiev are passing the baton to this year’s so-called Olympic Games in Paris, where at the opening ceremony we see not only blasphemies against Christian holy things and values, but open praise of Satanized man. What does this mean – where does it lead us? The answer is obvious. At the end of those games in Paris, by the Providence of God, a man appeared, a sportsman, and he turned out to be a Serb, who could have been a Russian, a Ukrainian, a Greek or an Italian, so – he took the cross, kissed it, raised his hands to heaven and said, “Thank God, I am what I am, thanks to this cross and to Him who for our salvation was crucified on it and rose from the grave, raising us all from the dead, thank you Christ, my God!”. I am sure that all of us gathered here watched this film with the same sentiment, and that this blessed evening will not be forgotten in our lives. Thank you. Emir Kusturica has the floor.

Emir Kusturica:

I was very impressed by the story of the author of Kiev, the energy of his words connects the whole canvas of the film, especially the idea that this war was sold to the Ukrainians and they bought it. I wonder: who will collect the hefty interest they have already paid and will continue to pay to these sellers – creditors? Who is keeping the interest to make profit, from their life and death? This movie reminded me – I don’t even know why – as if we were watching a live broadcast of the French bourgeois revolution, as if dishonest people were entering churches, desecrating them, all for revenge against Jacques de Molay, who in the 13th century was condemned to death and led to the stake. So I ask myself, who are they, these bearers of humanity’s interests, where will all this lead us, and what end awaits our humanity?

This caste of interests ruling the world will not give up so easily. The film we watched raises the question, “What price will we all pay and what are they selling us again, in exchange for our lives and our souls?”. I think this film should be shown before the beginning of classes in all schools in Serbia. Because it is about God and man. The soul of Ukraine today is wounded, the Ukrainian government persecutes Christ Himself. In Serbia, it seems to me, no matter how much Western politicians, no matter how much they try to kill God in us, with the help of the so-called soft power, which after the broadcasting of the opening of the Olympic Games in Paris has sharply hardened and manifested itself – it is impossible. It is not yet impossible, but we can already see that the war for human souls is becoming not only sacred and invisible, but visible and physically tangible. I think, I am sure that the film “People of Christ. Our Time” should be a mandatory teaching material in all schools in Serbia and the Balkans, so that children and young people understand what is really happening today! And this is the modern way of life and what has been formed as the American dream: the pursuit of material and empty things, which leads to the fact that the idea of the eternal human soul and its nurturing is fading away, it is no longer believed in and, therefore, no longer believed in God.

The only world politician, Vladimir Putin, for the first time in the war on the side of Christians and Christianity, in Syria. I think this is one of the main reasons for what is happening today.

Father Andrei Tkachev recently reminded us of Nikolai Gogol’s story about two brothers, one of whom was promised by the devil, who was visiting the fair, that if he killed his brother, he would get the most beautiful girl in town and a chest of gold. He killed his brother, but got neither the girl nor the gold.

We Ukrainians have been sold a war, and only God and our prayers can save this nation so dear to us. Let us listen to the Ukrainians themselves, and I give the floor to Mykola Mogilny, a priest from Kiev.

Priest Nikolai Mogilny:

Hi. First of all, I would like to thank the Serbian people, who love God, and the brilliant people who influenced the making of this film. Man is a very weak creature, but nevertheless he can do the impossible for good when he is strengthened by God and love for his fellow man. When you are in Ukraine, in the aggressive environment of mass media, at some point you start to realize that your brother is not your brother. It is a scary state, because under the external influence of mass media and fear a person starts to accept ideas alien to him and to do inhuman things. I was surprised that the participants in this film, theologians, priests living in different countries, think and feel what is happening in exactly the same way and I understood why: they are united in Christ. We see with our own eyes that the devil sins, and he sins with people’s hands. And people devoted to him want to turn us into animals, into beasts, which live, according to the words of St. Basil the Great, in the belly and what is under the belly. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky said that man without the orthodoxy of Christ is garbage. Modern warfare is hybrid, and in the first place it aims to dehumanize each of us. The task of the enemy of man is to kill God in us, and then it will be easy to teach us and our children to kill each other. We hope that this wonderful film will be seen by a large number of people around the world and that they will learn from the mouths of the direct participants of the events what is happening in Ukraine. It is important to realize that the circles that came out into the water from the stone of hatred towards man and God thrown in Kiev can destroy the foundations of Christianity and the healthy foundations of the whole world, and then humanity will cease to exist.

Ruslan Kalinchuk, Ukrainian philosopher from Ivano-Frankivsk:

Good evening Your Holiness, Your Eminence, brothers and sisters. I have watched this film with great regret. I was working in Kiev in our church. I covered all the events that we have seen today on the screen. And I personally communicated with many of those people we have seen here today. For this activity I was granted a great honor – the Security Service of Ukraine and Zelensky filed a criminal case against me, because of my faith in God. Believe me, we have seen only a small part of the suffering and horror that believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are experiencing today. Since 2018, the authorities have illegally confiscated and transferred 1,500 churches to the so-called PCU created by the authorities themselves. Zelensky deprived 13 bishops of Ukrainian Orthodox Church citizenship. Criminal cases have been opened against 30 bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Today, SBU agents arrived in the morning at the Vedensky monastery in Kiev. The vicar of this monastery, Archbishop Damian, commemorates Patriarch Kirill of Russian Orthodoxy and this is his only “crime”. The only crimes of which the priests, laity and bishops of the UOC are accused are their loyalty to the canons, to tradition, to Christ and His Church. Instead of dealing with the fight against human trafficking, drug trafficking, instead of dealing today with the fight against the wild corruption, which flourishes rampantly during the war, the SBU and Zelensky’s power go to the temples and persecute the believers in the Lord Christ. Therefore, using such a high rostrum today, I appeal to the representatives of the media, of cultural, scientific, spiritual and public life, to those of our brothers and sisters who live in Europe, Latin and North America, Asia, who live all over the world – people, please bring to your audience, to your close friends and acquaintances that the blood and tears of the believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are in the hands of all those who now support the Zelensky regime!

But I am sure that whatever enemy fights against the Church, it will be overthrown! Long live Serbia! Long live Holy Russia! Long live Christ and His people!