Allegorical film, Crucible, set to become truth on Jan 1. A local filmmaker on religion, Arthur Miller and communism. For me, this script is about freedom of belief. Before the Lipe Art Park Show that the short was commissioned (and re-written) for, the original script was about a society that had outlawed religion. It seems far-fetched in America today, but it was only 25 years ago that the Catholic Church was legalized in Ukraine. Full disclosure: I belong to a Ukrainian Catholic Church. The idea that a government would and could squash the freedoms and liberties of a people is part of our culture. That is why I went with the title Crucible. I wanted to evoke the recent memory of the Red Scare by way of referencing the Arthur Miller play. I enjoyed the fact that the communism championed in Miller’s play, The Crucible, was the same communism that caused the oppression in my short film, Crucible. But now it looks like history is repeating. Russia occupies Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian Catholic Church has no legal status in Russia, and therefore would not be able to register on the first of the year, as required by Russian law. The right to legal activity will soon be withdrawn. Many Ukrainian Catholics have already fled Crimea to escape arrest and property seizures. When we produced this short film, I had no idea that it would be so topical. I wish that it wasn’t. -Stephen Long, Dir. Crucible. vimeo/70677746
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 02:29:21 +0000
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