Emir Kusturica

Emir Kusturica (born November 24, 1954, Sarajevo, Yugoslavia [now in Bosnia and Herzegovina]) is a Bosnian-born Serbian motion picture director, screenwriter, actor, and producer who was one of the most-distinguished European filmmakers since the mid-1980s, best known for surreal and naturalistic movies that express deep sympathies for people from the margins.

Education and early career

Kusturica, who made notable short films while in high school, attended the FAMU film academy in Prague. His student movie Guernica (1978), which was based on the novel by Serbian academic Antonije Isaković, received an award for the best short film at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. In 1978 he completed his degree at FAMU, joining a list of notable graduates that included Goran Paskaljević (Serbia), Goran Marković (Serbia), Srđan Karanović (Serbia), Rajko Grlić (Croatia), and Lordan Zafranović (Croatia).

Kusturica began his professional career as a television director on TV Sarajevo, helming the dramas Nevjeste dolaze (1978; The Brides Are Coming), which caused a stir because of the explicit sex scenes, and Bife Titanic (1979; Buffet Titanic), an adaptation of the short story by the Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andrić, whose works became a frequent source of inspiration for Kusturica.

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Films of the 1980s

Kusturica’s first motion picture, the family drama Sjećaš li se Dolly Bell? (1981; Do You Remember Dolly Bell?), is a tale of an adolescent growing up in a poor family dominated by his despotic father in the 1960s. Poetic and nostalgic, the movie, which was written by the Bosnian author Abdulah Sidran, won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival. Kusturica reteamed with Sidran for his next movie, Otac na slubenom putu (1985; When Father Was Away on Business). A story of the brutal intrusion of politics into the 1950s childhood of a somnambulist boy, it is enhanced by a picturesque style and magic realism. The movie won the Golden Palm at the Cannes film festival and received an Academy Award nomination for best foreign-language film.

The art film Dom za vešanje (1989; Time of the Gypsies) marks a further plunge into the surreal with its portrayal of the almost grotesque atmosphere surrounding a group of Roma (Gypsies). Rich in vivid folk iconography, the movie was influenced by the Serbian film genre of crni talas (“black wave”) from the late 1960s and early ’70s. It centres on a Roma teenager with telekinetic powers who is an outcast within a group already rejected by society. Time of the Gypsies won an award for the best direction at Cannes and cemented Kusturica as a leader of European Modernist filmmaking, earning him comparisons to Federico Fellini, Andrey Tarkovski, and Luis Buñuel. The sound track, immensely popular in Yugoslavia, launched the international career of the composer and rock musician Goran Bregović.

Hollywood and a second Golden Palm

Kusturica was known for his work with actors, especially nonprofessional ones whom he regularly used in his movies. After a stint teaching at the Academy of Scenic Arts in Sarajevo, he accepted in 1990 an invitation from Miloš Forman to take over his post as a professor of movie directing at Columbia University in New York. Three years later Kusturica directed his first English-language movie, Arizona Dream, a dramedy starring Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway, and Jerry Lewis. His headstrong creative spirit did not fit well into the Hollywood mold, and at one point he left the production and moved to Serbia. Nevertheless, he won a Silver Bear award for direction at the Berlin International Film Festival.

With his next movie, Podzemlje (1995; Underground), Kusturica won his second Golden Palm, joining a small group of directors who had twice won the top prize at Cannes: Alf Sjöberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and Bille August. The movie is a parable on the breakup of Yugoslavia, including a memorable scene of the German bombing of Belgrade’s zoo in 1941. Kusturica revisited the Roma milieu in the screwball comedy Crna mačka, beli mačor (1998; Black Cat, White Cat). It marked a shift in his visual expression, switching from relatively bleak and gray to colourful, almost flamboyant. The movie was awarded a Silver Lion award for directing at the Venice Film Festival.

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The 21st century

Already known for methodical work and long postproduction periods, Kusturica directed only two feature films over the next two decades: Život je čudo (2004; Life Is a Miracle) and Zavet (2007; Promise Me This). The former deals with life in a small Bosnian town as the war approaches, and the latter concerns the vow given by a grandfather to his grandson. Though both films are typically heartwarming, they are generally considered less successful and somewhat repetitive. However, in this period he directed the well-received documentaries Priče super osmice (2001; Super 8 Stories), about his rock band, Emir Kusturica and the No Smoking Orchestra, and Maradona (2008), about the Argentine football (soccer) player. In addition, Kusturica directed segments for two anthology movies, All the Invisible Children (2005) and Words with Gods (2014); he also appeared in the latter, which was commissioned by Mario Vargas Llosa. In 2016 he returned to directing feature films with Na mlečnom putu (“On the Milky Road”), in which he also starred, with Monica Bellucci. Two years later he helmed El Pepe, una vida suprema (El Pepe, A Supreme Life), a documentary about Uruguayan Pres. José Mujica.

Other activities

Though mainly focused on his own films, Kusturica cowrote the screenplays for two 1987 movies, Strategija švrake (The Magpie Strategy) and Život radnika (“A Worker’s Life”), and also produced two popular movies, Jagoda u supermarketu (2003; Strawberries in the Supermaket) and Guča (2006; Gucha: Distant Trumpet). His notable acting credits included Patrice Leconte’s La Veuve de Saint-Pierre (2000; The Widow of Saint-Pierre) and Neil Jordan’s The Good Thief (2002).

As a bass player, Kusturica performed and toured with several rock bands and musicians, including his son, musician Stribor Kusturica, who composed sound tracks for several of his father’s movies. Time of the Gypsies was adapted by Kusturica as a punk opera, and the technically demanding production premiered at the Opéra Bastille in Paris in 2007 before touring Europe.

In 2002 Kusturica began building sets for Life Is a Miracle on a hill in western Serbia. He continued to expand the sets, which eventually grew into an ethno-village that he named Drvengrad (“Woodville”). He was also a driving force behind Andrićgrad (named after Ivo Andrić; also known as Kamengrad [“Stoneville”]), a cultural centre and a city within a city, on the banks of the Drina River in Višegrad, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It opened to the public in 2012. In addition, in 2008 Kusturica founded his own international film and music festival, Küstendorf, which was held annually in Drvengrad.

Among many accolades, Kusturica became a UNICEF ambassador in 2002, and eight years later he was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in France. He published an autobiography Smrt je neprovjerena glasina (“Death Is an Unverified Rumour”) in 2010, followed by a book of fiction, Sto jada (“Hundreds of Troubles”), in 2013.