Micanovic: Ministry Defends Censoring Speech in Herceg Novi

Montenegro’s Ministry of Culture and Media has spoken for the first time about a case that has stirred the cultural public on both sides of the border for a week: why actor Dragan Micanovic never delivered the speech that was meant to open the 39th Herceg Novi Film Festival. The explanation from the ministry of Minister Tamara Vujovic is that a festival opening is no place for political messages.

“FFHN is a cultural event of national significance, and we believe its opening should be devoted to film and art, not political messages,” the Ministry of Culture and Media of Montenegro said in a statement.

The festival opened on August 22, and that date was supposed to be Micanovic’s night. He had been officially announced as the one to open the event, and, following standard procedure, submitted the text of his speech for translation into English, at which point, according to Montenegrin media, things stalled. According to the outlet ETV, the decision to keep the actor from delivering the prepared text was made by the festival’s sponsors, the Ministry of Culture and Media and the Herceg Novi municipality, both led by officials from the Democratic Montenegro party. Minister Vujovic opened the festival herself, without any prior announcement, later telling reporters informally that it was due to “unforeseen circumstances.” Micanovic left Herceg Novi immediately after the decision and returned to Belgrade.

The actor himself has neither confirmed nor denied the reports about why he was pulled from the program. He told Pobjeda only that he would address the matter once the festival was over, saying he did not want the incident to overshadow the film program.

What the audience in Herceg Novi was supposed to hear was nonetheless published in full by the Montenegrin outlet ETV. The speech references the student protests from a year and a half earlier and the violence against students of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, and Micanovic closes it with a line that would prove too much for the stage:

“A year and a half ago, together with colleagues, I carried a banner that read: I will rise, crushed, shattered, oppressed, against armies of steel with a wooden sword.”

Also left unread was a line from the same speech that is now circulating in Montenegrin media as its central point: “I invite you not to look away, not to let them blindfold us, but instead to open our eyes wide.”

Within days, the ministry’s decision grew into an institutional dispute. PEN Center Montenegro demanded a public apology to Micanovic and the resignation of Minister Vujovic, adding that Prime Minister Milojko Spajic should remove her if she does not step down on her own. The NGO STEGA claims Micanovic was asked to cut the contentious parts of his speech, refused, and that Spajic himself, who was supposed to open the festival in person, left Herceg Novi before the ceremony as a result. The Singlus union, headed by actor Darko Tomovic, called the ministry’s explanation, that responsibility lies with the organizers given the festival’s character, “thin.”

“Censorship is never good,” Tomovic says, though he adds that Montenegro formally has the right not to let a guest use its festival to voice an opinion on another country’s internal struggle.

That sentence captures the core of a dispute the ministry is trying to close with a single statement. No one involved disputes that a festival’s organizers are free to choose who opens their program. What is disputed is that the decision came only after the speech had already been submitted for translation, meaning after its content was known, rather than before the actor was invited to appear. An institution that should by definition defend the space for artistic speech instead decided, in this case, what could and could not be said from a festival stage, and explained the decision as a matter of keeping the focus on film rather than politics. For Montenegro’s cultural policy, which has in recent years leaned on regional cooperation and a post-Yugoslav framing, that is an uncomfortable position: the Herceg Novi Film Festival spent decades building a reputation as an event that does not screen its guests for their views on a neighboring state, and its 39th edition will, it seems, be remembered above all for the speech that was never delivered.