A renowned Serbian film producer Emir Kusturica was invited to Turkey to be a member of jury at the “Golden Orange” film festival in Antalya. While being in Turkey he faced such a big resistance that he had to leave from that country by making harsh statements. When the people learned that Kusturica would be a member of the jury of the Turkish national movies, the Turkish minister of tourism and culture Ertoughrul Gyunai announced that he was not going to take part in the festival as Kusturica was not a person who “inspires credibility”, who justifies the genocide of the Muslims of Bosnia. Different NGOs announced that Kusturica is a “fascist”. In addition, the renowned film producer Semih Kaplanoglu (who, by the way, participated in our Golden Apricot film festival recently) openly took out the movie “Honey” to show that he doesn’t want him to express opinions about his film. This resulted in a conflict, which involved Turkish politicians too. Before the film festival would start, a group of Turkish extremist nationals expressed discontent for inviting Kusturica. Also, the behavior of the president of the Golden Orange should be praised as he asked the guards to throw them out of the office.
Kusturica is also accused in adopting Christianity (he was born as Muslim but later he was baptized in a Christian apostolic church). They also reminded Kusturica of his speeches in 2008, in which he was against the independence of Kosovo and said, “Those who want to separate Serbia’s integrity are like small and dark mice, who are hiding in their holes and don’t want to see the fact that Kosovo is Serbia’s “historical heart”. The Turkish nationalistic people held rallies in Antalya and petitioned the Turkish citizens to boycott Kusturica’s presence.
After this incident Emir Kustirica lost his patience and gave an interview to the Turkish NTV liberal channel and announced that he was met in Antalya with an attitude which cannot be called in any other way than “primitive barbarism”. He said this was the reason why he was leaving Turkey even though it was a pity that he would not be able to hold master classes for Turkish students, which had been agreed in advance. “It is impossible to work in this situation. Everyone knows that I am anti-imperialist. My life and my arts have been built on this ideology. The accusations brought against me in Turkey are simply baseless. I know that I can make mistakes but I am not going to try to justify myself,” he said at an extraordinary press-conference on Sunday. He said that if the arts and politics are mixed in Turkey in such a barbarian manner, he considers the minister of culture as his enemy. It is worth mentioning that the film producer, who has clear attitudes and approaches, said during his visit to Yerevan this winter that he was not going to make a movie about South Ossetia and had rejected Russia’s order because it would be not an art order but political one. He says that those who were accusing him in supporting the genocide of Bosnian Muslims (especially Kaplanoghlu) had better remembered about the genocide of Armenians committed by them.
Of course this ugly story will not be good for the image of Turkey, but it is clear that the organizers of the Golden Orange understood very well that it was a brave decision to invite Kusturica. It was a tough decision, but they did. As for film producer Semih Kaplanoghlu, who was speaking about clear arts during his visit to Armenia, and said that arts and politics should be separated, and that he had signed under the action to apologize to Armenians, in fact is extreme nationalist and has two faces.