KUSTURICA: FILM IS JUST BEGINNING OF LONG BATTLE ON PATH TO TRUTH

BANJA LUKA, NOVEMBER 17 /SRNA/ - The film "The People of Christ - Our Time" was screened in Banja Luka tonight, which, through the suffering of the Orthodox Church, clergy and the faithful in Ukraine, talks about the circumstances in which Orthodoxy finds itself today.

Director Emir Kusturica says this film is just the beginning of a long battle for Orthodoxy to survive as a culture, i.e. a way to inform the world that there is persecution and destruction of churches there. He emphasized that someone sold war to Ukraine and that the problem in the future will be who will pay the interest, i.e. what will be the situation in those areas where Orthodoxy is stifling. He pointed out that it is a fortunate circumstance that things in the world are changing, so the people at the top of the USA have changed. The main producer Mirko Radenović says the idea of making the film was born because of the harsh current reality in Ukraine, but also because of what is happening with the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo and Metohija. "We would like to show the objective situation. It is not just a schism in the church, but serious, aggressive and violent attacks on Orthodox Christians," said Marković. Archpriest Nikolai Magilyny from Kyiv, one of the participants in the film, thanked Kusturica and everyone who participated in the making of the film, stressing that the Church is universal, that it belongs to everyone and that it is a common front that everyone must defend. Well-known Ukrainian missionary and writer Ruslan Kalinchuk, who was in a Ukrainian prison, said that he would still be imprisoned if his friends had not invested a lot of effort and money to free him. "It is tragic that Europe, which is supposedly democratic, is dying. The situation is tragic and many priests and citizens are in prisons, while the churches have been confiscated," Kalinchuk said.