Page - 88 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/01

88 | Milja Radovic www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/1, 73–89 are we to measure it, and whose morality does it represent? We need to remember that when it comes to “othering”, the foreign Other does not need to be morally evil but has to be different so that some kind of conflict is possible.72 Both films discussed here search in different ways for the alternatives to the practices of “othering”. Wajdja and Circles come from very different socio-political and religious contexts. Neither film deals with religion per se, but both nonetheless include religious ele- ments and symbolism to illustrate the characters’ quest for their own identities. This lack of what is usually perceived as “religious” in films is precisely what makes these films strongly religious – in other words, the implicit presence of religion works very well, allowing both filmmaker and audience to explore existential questions related to otherness and freedom and also to religious belonging. In exploring the meaning of the Other, the films move beyond the usual political representations of the issue by imposing ontological questions – who is my neighbour and who am I? In Wajdja and Circles, the relationship to the Other is demonstrated as “being-with-the-Other”, not only by moving beyond the othering of one’s neigh- bour and imposed ethnic and gender differences, but also by recognising the equal human being in the Other, who precisely because of this equality cannot be denied the same right to act. The right to act is seen as an existential right: it is the right to live freely, liberated from religious, ethnic, and gender-based exclusion. This right is the right to ontological freedom, and in that sense, even unintentionally, the filmmak- ers impose moral law as normative, by demonstrating that it is “not my enemy who defines me”73 but my neighbour – and how I relate to the foreign, marginalised Other. The films explore this universal aspect of Otherness in both ontological and ontic senses, and their claim for equal rights in circumstances in which divisions are still part of the social and political reality disrupts existing political practices. The concepts of activist citizenship and, consequently, peacebuilding have been re-created and recon- structed through the scene of film, through a creative and authentic practice, and activism therefore has been constructed in film not only by depicting the issues at hand but also by the very process of creation. BIBLIOGRAPHY Arendt, Hannah, 1961, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Cleveland/ London: World Publishing Company. Bretherton, Luke, 2011, “Love Your Enemies”. Usury, Citizenship and the Friend-Enemy Distinction, Modern Theology 27, 3, 366–394. Gianvito, John (ed.), 2006, Andrei Tarkovsky Interviews, Jackson: The University Press of Mississippi. Grassilli, Mariagiulia, 2012, Human Rights Film Festivals. Global/Local Networks for Advocacy, in: Iordanova, Dina/Torchin, Leshu (eds.), Film Festivals and Activism, St. Andrews, Scotland: University of St. An- drews Press, 31–47. 72 Bretherton 2011, 368; “Enemy can be economic competitor, which is de-politization of public life” (369). 73 Bretherton 2011, 369.