At the competition of the Film Center of Serbia (FCS) in the category of Co-financing the production of domestic feature-length films with a national theme, the project "Dečanski Ključ" by Milutin Petrović was financially supported.
Then, this week, director Milutin Petrović announced that at the end of September the team will go to Dečani and start filming, and that the premiere is planned for November 24 next year, on the Day of Saint Stefan Dečanski.
However, the Administration of Visoki Dečani Monastery has, at least for now, disputed the filming of Petrović's film.
As they stated on Twitter, there is no blessing of the bishop of Raska-Prizren, Teodosi, for the announced recording, which was also not agreed with the abbot of the monastery, Archimandrite Sava.
They say that promoting the heritage of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo within the Diocese of Raško-Prizren is possible only with the blessing of the diocesan bishop and in cooperation with monasteries or parish churches. They also note that "the mention of the filming of this film in some Kosovo Albanian media, without any verification by the Dečani Monastery and the Diocese, was maliciously portrayed as an activity directed against Kosovo."
With a plea for understanding, Ana Rodić, co-writer of "Dečanski ključ" (with Saša Radojević and Živojin Rakočević from Gračanica), does not want to comment on this delicate situation. Unofficially, he says to the "Vremena" portal that this is the mood of the rest of the team, that they learned about everything from the media, that they have great understanding towards those wonderful people from Dečan, and that he hopes that we will hear from him soon on some other better occasion.
Announcing the film, Milutin Petrović explained that the story follows two priests between whom there is a parallel. They are the current abbot Sava Janjić and Danilo Kažanegra, who was abbot during "perhaps even more difficult times, if there were ever more difficult times", at the end of the 18th century.
On that occasion, the director said that he wanted to make, "the best film of all time" and Dečani are the reason for such a thing, because they are really "the heart and root of all things". Anyone who has been to Dečani understands what it is about, "because Dečani is a place where you go and nothing is the same after that."
Photo: TanjugHe said that "it's not a mystification, it's not some otherworldly thing, it's physical." Literally, you go there and wonder what has changed now", and he pointed out that "the people who did this were Holy King Milutin, in fact Emperor Dušan did the most work, so it could be said that the people of Deč are mostly his endowment, they had such an insight into aesthetics, into style, into deep spiritual things related to beauty, to harmony, to things that make up the essence of humanity, that I, who should make this film, felt like the last uneducated scumbag towards them".
The second reason why this film is being made stems from the custom of Serbs to address themselves, to "address those for whom there is no need to convince them".
In the explanation of the Film Center of Serbia why they will co-finance "Dečanski kluč" with 9.000. 000 dinars, among other things it says that "The history of the Dečani monastery is to a good extent the history of Serbia. The struggle for the survival of monasteries is also the struggle of both medieval and modern Serbia. In a good way, the author concentrates attention on two key crises of the monastery: the one from the 18th century as a result of the migration of Serbs and the one in the context of the wars of the 90s. Planning to use different types of documentary material, the author's intention is to guide the film in such a way that it presents a picture of the dynamic history of Kosovo and Metohija from several angles, through the history of Decani".
From the conversation with the author, the competition committee of the FCS, as already mentioned, got the impression that during the realization there will be a directorial process that uses and shapes the documentary material in an original, dynamic and interesting way.
S.Ć./NovaS/Sputnik
Read daily news, analysis, commentary and interviews at www.vreme.com
