by Federico Grandesso War was one of the main themes featured at the latest annual Venice International Film Festival. New Europe spoke about the crisis in Ukraine with two winners of the main competition. Swedish movie director Roy Andersson, who won the Golden Lion prize, said: “It’s a risky situation, there is the Ukraine crisis, but I’m not so afraid about that. I’m more afraid of what can happen in the Asian sea with countries involved like Philippines, Japan, China and Malaysia. This area has a lot of oil under the sea. Now in Sweden, they are talking about Russia, but I don’t find it very dangerous and it’s very interesting to note that the Soviet Union collapsed without blood – it was a very peaceful collapse. And it’s also interesting to remember that the day after Sweden started to send weapons to the Baltic countries. I think that it was a very aggressive attitude, the west started the aggression. We have to calm down. Historically Sweden has always been afraid of Russia because of what happened to Finland.” A more eastern prospective to the crisis was offered by Russian master Andrej Koncaloskij, winner of the Silver Lion for the Best Director. He explained, in his own personal volcanic and irreverent way, how war relates to art. He said: “The best art is created during epidemics and wars, in time of peace art is quite poor.” Koncaloskij also spoke about Western values in relation to Russia. He said: “The European ‘way’ is not universal and democracy in poor country brings chaos and dictatorship while in rich countries democracy brings prosperity. In poor areas, it’s a disaster. South Africa is the best example. Russia is medieval country even now and it’s wonderful because it’s rich and free and it’s not politically correct. It’s just crazy and that’s why it’s great. Europe is divided between Latins and Greeks. The Greeks are Dionysian, they drink, sing, cry and they don’t have rules. The Latins like rules and this is why a common understanding is very difficult. Poles will never understand Russians or Serbs and they are both Europeans.” According to the Russian director, Europe’s decline is evident. He explained: “I think then that Euro-centrism is over. Europe will not survive without Russia, but Russia will survive without Europe because the EU will not have any kind of supply of drinking water. Russia is the biggest source of drinking water in the world, we have five big rivers. In 15 years, wars will be fought over drinking water. Peace is impossible, there is a constant war somewhere and today after the fall of the Soviet Union there were 300 wars and the production of weapons are tripled. Western Europe can’t accept the uncomfortable truth that European values are not universal and that the word freedom means nothing in some countries and that you can’t explain what it is because Confucius philosophy is about duties and not rights. It’s naive to think that the American dream will flourish everywhere. I also see some good political philosophers in Europe like Vaclav Klaus who explained why he is sceptical of Thilo Sarrazin in Germany. They were ostracised because they were dangerous for the politically correct understanding of life.”
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