The Miracle of Life is Lost on HRT’s Stankovic

By :Bojana Jankovic

Uzice, Nov.7, 2009 (Serbia Today) – Located on Serbia’s Western border, near the Bosnian border, sits renown Serbian director, Emir Kusturica’s tourist village, Mecavnik. Mecavnik commonly referred to as Mokra Gora, the mountain upon which it is located, in what is Serbia’s Zlatibor region.

Mokra Gora is a tourist village whose design was aimed at capturing an idealized traditional Serbian village. Preserving the natural beauty of the setting and living in harmony with nature were the early objectives of the project. Mokra Gora succeeds in turning back the hands of time and creating a time capsule of Serbian life in the village without the past political complications or present encroachment of the modern world.

On Wednesday, November 4th , 2009, Croatian television HRT team, led by television broadcast “In Sunday in two”, Aleksandar Stanković in Mokra Gora met with Emir Kusturica. Stankovic felt the need to ask, what whiskey the late Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic during the blockade of Sarajevo. Stankovic wasn’t stopped on this issue, but continued with the same tone. Stankovic said, he was reminded of one touching scene in the Hague courtroom, during which Milosevic sent kisses to his wife Mira and compared there interaction with Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun. Kusterica responded, “Why do not you talk a little about the Croatian legionaries who killed Serbs in Croatia?”. The Kusterica was then asked by Stankovic what he thought about Ante Gotovina, the Coatian war criminal being sought byThe Hague. Kusturica was forced to eject the Croatian television team after it become obvious that there presence was a mere effort to provoke him and attempt to create bad press for nationalistic reasons. The material from the interview was taken beofer the team was escorted from the property.

And while Stankovic believes that the seizure of material “classic robbery and pure thievery,” Kusturica said that the talks ended because of the evil intentions of journalist, and that the “he had forgotten about the tapes immediately following the event.”

For Kusturica, the issues surrounding the entire interview were not related to any future plans the director’s Mokra Gora, but based on politics. The sad scene played out by Croatia’s own national network by Stankovic showed that there are still too many people in the region that find it more important to hold on to the past and stoke the fires of hatred, even when they are in the middle of the most bucolic of settings surrounded by artists.