‘Totalitarian society’: Iconic Serbian filmaker hits out after YouTube ban

Emir Kusturica says the Google-owned platform is seeking to suppress any dissent contradicting the mainstream narrative

Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica has accused YouTube of waging a “war” against people who think independently and “tell the truth,” after the Google-owned platform deleted his channel without any warning.

YouTube removed Kusturica’s ‘My Life’ channel on Wednesday, without publicly elaborating on the decision, according to several media reports. The project, produced with Sputnik’s Serbian service, contained more than 200 videos and had roughly 30,000 subscribers. Some of the videos are dedicated to the fate of Yugoslavia, the clash of civilizations, and the collision between Christian and Western values.

After the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, YouTube banned both Sputnik and RT as the West imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia. Moscow condemned the Western crackdown on the outlets as proof of an anti-Russian agenda and Western censorship.

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Commenting on the ban, Kusturica told TASS that “a totalitarian society” was behind the move, adding that “for them it is normal that they closed the channel on YouTube. They are at war with us, with people who think, who tell the truth and bring truth to the masses.”

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Separately, he said that “they don’t want anyone in that choir who doesn’t sing a song in which the algorithms reflect what those at the top want, those richest people in the world, plus the intelligence services.”

Sputnik Balkan noted that while YouTube rules stipulate that a channel can be shut down due to user complaints about video content, and after three consecutive warnings, neither the outlet’s editorial staff nor Kusturica received any notifications.

RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan also condemned the move, describing Kusturica as her close friend. “Welcome to the club, maestro!” she wrote, referring to the Western sanctions placed on other outlets.

Born in Sarajevo in 1954, Kusturica is one of Europe’s most decorated filmmakers. He won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for ‘When Father Was Away on Business’ in 1985 and again for ‘Underground’ in 1995, while ‘Time of the Gypsies’, ‘Arizona Dream’ and ‘Black Cat White Cat’ cemented his reputation for surreal and politically charged Balkan cinema.

Kusturica has been supportive of Moscow’s stance on the Ukraine crisis, arguing that the conflict had been “long prepared with the assistance of the Pentagon” and was “a war against Orthodoxy,” while describing the Ukrainian government as “pro-Nazi.”