DRVENGRAD, Western Serbia, January 26 /TASS/. Well-known Serbian film director, Emir Kusturica, said on Monday that Russian and Serbian film industries needed to undergo “cultural de-colonization” and get rid of Hollywood influence.
“Russia has never been anybody’s colony but Hollywood has managed to colonize it. Colonization is a dangerous thing. When a Russian film starts looking like an American picture, it’s really funny because it stops being Russia but it never becomes American,” Kusturica said in an interview with TASS given on the sidelines of the 8th International Film Festival “Kustendorf” which Kusturica has founded.
According to the film director, Russia and Serbia should simply return to their roots out of which something better may grow and develop.
“Cinema houses in the former Yugoslavia used to be full before (Slobodan) Milosevic’s fall. Ninety percent of films were homemade while foreign pictures accounted for a mere 10%. Now, 70% are foreign and 30% are homemade. That is because we are mentally (not physically) colonized,” Kusturica said. He then quoted his daughter Dunja who said that cultural de-colonization was necessary.