FYROManians are masters in spreading propaganda, and their latest demise is a new film that is (unfortunately) nominated for an Oscar. The film titled "The Third Half" (time) has been added to the list of best foreign films and is supposedly a true story of a football team by the name of .. "Macedonia".
The football team is apparently coached by a man of Jewish faith who decides to make the team compete in Bulgaria’s national football league during the time of Nazi occupation and they come out as winners.
The film has already outraged Bulgarians since it depicts them as fascists. So much so that they called on EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule to confront Skopje over the movie. European MPs Andrey Kovachev (EPP), Evgeni Kirilov (S&D) and Stanimir Ilchev (ALDE) signed a letter -a copy of which was obtained by EurActiv in late 2011- in which they stated their concern over the "attempt to manipulate Balkan history" and "spread hate" on the part of the EU candidate country against its neighbours.
The film is a lavishly funded international production, depicting a football match played in 1942 between two teams of the Bulgarian football league – Levksi and "Makedonia". EurActiv said in a report that the film allows viewers to think that the Bulgarians were plotting to kill the coach of the team.
FYROManians on the other hand say that the film aims to bring their people "together", but Lazar Mladenov, president of the Bulgarian Cultural Club in Skopje, told EurActiv that mass scenes in the film stage a "very heavy anti-Bulgarian atmosphere".
The film is done with the support of FYROManian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who helped grant the production a state contribution of 1 million Euros. (Money exists for movies and not for jobs... almost one third of the citizens in FYROM are living on the poverty line)
And here is where it gets really interesting. The general sponsor of the film is Sparkasse Bank, a part of the German banking group that has been asked by Bulgarian MEPs to withdraw its support.
In the letter to Füle, MPs said that the "FYROM policy is running counter to our European values" and shows Skopje is breaching European acquis, citing various texts from European Parliament resolutions.
Significantly, the Bulgarian MPs used the acronym FYROM , or Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, even though Bulgaria was the first country in the world to recognize FYROM under its constitutional name, after it seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991.
Kirilov told EurActiv that the Gruevski government had "overdone it" with nationalist activities, aimed at boosting its popularity. "This may have helped him win the elections," he said adding that the FYROManians "will soon realise that this is not in the country's interest."
FYROManians are now doing what Turkey is doing in Greece. Turkey has given Greek television broadcasters free nightly soap operas which they gladly broadcast -because they are FREE-. Obviously Turkey believes that art can express anything it wishes, and FYROM -which is one of its closest allies- is obviously following suit.
But for arguments sake, if this were true, then why was the hate film about Mohamed not received well by Muslim nations, and why was the Corpus Cristi play not received well by Christians? Quite simply, there are some things that cannot be termed "art", but obviously both Turkey and now FYROM perceive art as yet another medium to spread their vicious propaganda. Besides, using the name "Macedonia" has always been about their expansionist designs into Greece.
Athens argues that "Republic of Macedonia" implies a claim over its northern region and considers that Skopje is misappropriating large chunks of its ancient history. Similarly, Bulgaria considers that FYROM is cherry-picking heroes and glorious episodes from its medieval history and the 19th- and early-20th century struggle against Ottoman domination.
Getting back to the movie, and determined to make this film a winner, we suspect that they also came up with a clever method to make it stand out. But hey ... we are not that naive.
Over the last few weeks they have flooded the movie's page on the IMDb (Internet Movie Database), which is the largest film database on the Internet. They voted in favor of the film by obviously giving it a 10, and after 1340 votes, the modest FYROManian film received a rating of 9.5 (making it a so-called masterpiece of the seventh art).
Now this sounds all fair and good, since it is a competition after all, but the average movie buff can easily be tricked into thinking that the movie is indeed worth seeing and he or she will rush to view it.
Now don't get us wrong, it might indeed be a great film, (we have personally not seen it), but that is not where the problem is. The problem is that after these people view the film, most of which are probably not that up-to-date with geopolitics, will remember seeing a flick about a team that was called "Macedonia" and they will associate that name with this region in Europe. And that dear friends... is a problem.
And it will be an even bigger problem if they actually are awarded with an Oscar.
Hellenes its time for some action. Remember to also be wise in which movie you pay attention to when visiting the site.
References
- http://www.euractiv.com/enlargement/macedonian-film-infuriates-bulga-news-508639
http://history-of-macedonia.com/2012/10/30/skopiani-propaganda-oscar/
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