Emir Kustouritsa broke stereotypes by speaking from Chania, about cinema, politics, artificial intelligence, art and culture! The leading European filmmaker honours the 13th Chania Film Festival with his presence and a special event in his honour will take place on Tuesday 21 October at 10pm.
Unfolding a Balkan feast of thoughts and ideas, the Serbian director held a 78-minute press conference with local media representatives in the presence of students and the public, on Sunday afternoon at the Cultural Centre, answering questions on a range of issues and stating «conservative leftist», indifferent to the woke agenda and called on young people to turn off Netflix and get closer to the cinema experientially.
«I have a deep conviction that freedom means happiness. I am 70 years old and I do what I want in life. I wouldn't change my position for anything, even if I was told to become the CEO of the biggest bank in the world or the richest man in the world. I want to be able to have lunch in Kolonaki without security, to be able to choose where I want to go and not go where I don't want to go,« he said, in his opening statement, where he even declared himself «addicted to Greece».
The woke agenda aims to control the earth's population
However, his views on the Woke movement provoked the students who bombarded him with questions when he claimed that today the world is divided between those who support the Woke movement and those who believe in traditional values.
«The woke agenda was created by the CIA - it's part of a global plan to flatten local cultures and impose a homogeneity, which is what the left has been doing for the last 200 years. It is a manufactured agenda and not a genuine human rights agenda. It has been constructed to dismantle the institution of the family and create vulnerable individuals, easily manipulated by the multinationals. Globalists want to control the world population. The goal is to reduce the population of the earth. You can't dilemma a 10-year-old boy about his sexuality. Give him the so-called choice to decide whether he is a boy or a girl or... a little animal. It's fake! Even I'm 70 years old, if you start giving me choices like that, you're going to give me a dilemma! That doesn't mean I don't recognize the right of every person to explore their sexuality.
«We were looking for multiculturalism and now the whole world is playing the game of sexual diversity, not supported by any authority or ideology.
The orthodox world will survive, this may not be important to the proponents of woke culture but it is to us. They after all don't know if they exist or not.
The Woke movement is contradictory in nature. In the US its supporters are now identified with some out-of-control leftists. You don't become a leftist by regurgitating,» he said, among other things, to conclude by saying that «I am not interested in the Woke agenda at all.».
Hollywood... kills cinema
Unconventional and lyrical, a true Balkan, Kusturica referred to the complexity of his characters. «They are usually contradictory characters but I always give them something good. We shouldn't be critical of our heroes. (...) That's what modern cinema does. Most films have this cheap and superficial approach to human life, with a simplistic distinction between good and evil. They're trying to create the impression that the whole world is Hollywood, which is quite silly. Hollywood never manages to reflect people's existential problems.
I was called a «European director» as if I was performing on a lower stage
Continuing, Mr. Kusturica noted that «many times my American colleagues when they wanted to belittle me would say pejoratively, “he's a European director” as if I was playing on a lower dance floor. But everyone knows the depth of European culture. And when you call me a European director I will identify with Fellini, Antonioni, Tarkovsky, Mikhalkov, Visconti.».
To make a movie, you have to die first
«In Hollywood, to promote a movie, they get these chicks and chicks to tell us how great they had a great time on the set, how great the director was. That's nonsense. It's not real. If you want to reflect your ideas... you have to have your stomach turned upside down. You have to die to make a film. It's no fun at all.
I always have a personal connection with my films and one of them will be my next film based on a book by Valentin Rasputin called The Last Moment, set in a village in Serbia,» he said.
Cinema is sustained by the Festivals
For his presence at the Chania Film Festival he noted that: «I like small events. When I did my own festival my main goal was to stop the addiction to red carpets. Cinema is sustained by festivals» and said that the film culture of the audience has changed due to the technological revolution that is underway and the huge addiction to mobile phones and to seeing a film without going to the cinema.
«I always bet on love. I remember when I used to go to the cinema because I was in love with a girl in Sarajevo. You feel the need to walk around with a beautiful woman. To give her a kiss... And because I put love at the heart of cinema, I can't help but say that festivals love cinema.
It is the people who carry the culture. And festivals are great places for cinema.» he stressed.
For AI
Asked to comment on the onslaught of artificial intelligence, Mr: «Can AI tell the difference between good and bad? Can it teach us right and wrong? Obviously we cannot oppose devices that make our lives easier. But we must oppose the possibility of devices becoming wiser than we are. The next 1,000 years won't change much... The way we pay will certainly change. The way we reproduce? Who knows...
For COVID 19
Besides, as he stressed, it has now been proven that COVID 19 was created in a laboratory to continue saying... «Sheep, do not fear the wolf, fear the shepherd!»
For the Bases
«I believe that the American bases, at Souda, in the Mediterranean and around the world, have a horizon of a few more decades. I hope the Americans will be smart enough to withdraw their troops back to their country. But you are also helping them in what you show them you don't want them to do,» he noted, responding to a reporter's question.
The Americans will survive if they are smart enough to close their 880 bases,» he said.
