RT to hold global film festival on Ukraine conflict in Serbia

RT is holding an international film festival in Serbia later this week which will showcase documentaries on the Ukraine conflict. The network’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan has expressed gratitude to renowned Serbian director Emir Kusturica for helping to organize the event and providing a venue for it.

‘RT.Doc: The age of our heroes’ is slated to take place on November 22-24 in Drvengrad - a traditional village initially built by Kusturica as a set for his movies. The location has taken on a life of its own, eventually turning into a unique cultural space. RT is expected to present five documentaries there, with over 60 more set to air, including those created by Italian, French and US crews.

A round table devoted to “cancel culture” will be held during the festival. Kusturica and the Russian ambassador to Serbia, Aleksandr Botsan-Kharchenko, could potentially take part in a discussion on the Western pressure Belgrade has faced over its support for Moscow as well as attempts to cancel Russian culture globally.

On show at the festival will be RT’s documentary ‘I’m alive,’ based on interviews of Mariupol residents recounting alleged atrocities by Ukrainian troops. Another film slated to air at the event will be ‘Russophobia: history of hatred.’

Attendees will be able to see the RT documentary ‘Bosnian rift. A glance from Republika Srpska,’ which analyzes the Balkan wars of the 1990’s.

Commenting on the upcoming event, Simonyan thanked Kusturica for his hospitality. The RT editor-in-chief also said that the filmmakers, whose documentaries will be shown on Serbian soil, were risking life and limb to make sure that “people the world over can see the truth, not even our truth, but rather the truth in general, because, as we know, there is always only one truth.”

A Serbian documentary directed by Kusturica himself will air at the festival: ‘Christ’s people. These days.’ It explores Kiev’s persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which has traditionally had close ties to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Speaking during its premiere in Belgrade in September, the famous director accused the West of attempting “to kill God” in people, which, he claimed, it had succeeded in doing in Ukraine. He also alleged that the Western elites have long viewed Orthodoxy as the “number one enemy in the world.”

Last year, RT’s documentary festival was held in the Turkish capital, Ankara.