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Emir Kusturica
Emir Kusturica at Guadalajara film festival 2009.
Born	Emir Kusturica (1954-11-24) 24 November 1954 (age 70) Sarajevo, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SFR Yugoslavia
Nationality	Serbian
Other names	Nemanja
Occupation(s)	Film director and screenwriter
Years active	1978–present
Spouse	Maja Kusturica
Children	Stribor Kusturica Dunja Kusturica

Emir Nemanja Kusturica (Serbian Cyrillic: Емир Немања Кустурица, Serbian pronunciation: [ěmi̞r kǔ̞stu̞ri̞ʦa]), (born 24 November 1954 in Sarajevo) is a Serbian and Yugoslav filmmaker, actor and musician, recognized for several internationally acclaimed feature films. He is a two-time winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes (for When Father Was Away on Business and Underground), as well as being a Commander of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Since the mid-2000s, Kusturica's primary residence is Drvengrad, a village in the Mokra Gora region he had originally built for the purposes of his film Life Is a Miracle.

Life and work

Early life and works

Born to Murat Kusturica, a journalist employed at the Sarajevo's Secretariat of Information, and Senka Numankadić, a court secretary, young Emir grew up as the only child of a secular Bosnian Muslim family in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a constituent republic within Yugoslavia.

A lively kid, young Emir was by his own admission a borderline delinquent while growing up in the Sarajevo neighbourhood of Gorica. Through his father's friendship with the well-known director Hajrudin "Šiba" Krvavac, 17-year-old Emir got a bit part in Krvavac's 1972 Partisan film Valter brani Sarajevo, a major production funded generously by the Yugoslav state.

After graduating from the Film Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) in 1978, Kusturica began directing made-for-TV television shorts in then-Yugoslavia. He made his feature film debut in 1981 with Do You Remember Dolly Bell?, which won the prestigious Golden Lion for Best First Work at that year's Venice Film Festival. From 1981 to 1988, he was a lecturer at the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo (Akademija Scenskih Umjetnosti) and art director of Open Stage Obala (Otvorena scena Obala).

His second feature film, When Father Was Away on Business (1985), earned a Palme d'Or at Cannes and five Yugoslavian movie awards, as well as being nominated for an American Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Kusturica wrote the screenplays for both Do You Remember Dolly Bell? and When Father Was Away on Business in collaboration with Abdulah Sidran. In 1989, Kusturica earned more accolades for Time of the Gypsies, a film about Romani culture and the exploitation of their youth.

1990s

Kusturica continued to make highly regarded films into the next decade, including his American debut, the absurdist comedy Arizona Dream (1993). He won the Palme d'Or for his black comedy epic, Underground (1995), based upon a scenario of Dušan Kovačević, noted Serbian playwright.

In 1998, he won the Venice Film Festival's Silver Lion for Best Direction for Black Cat, White Cat, a farcical comedy set in a Gypsy (Romany) settlement on the banks of the Danube. The music for the film was composed by the Belgrade-based band No Smoking Orchestra.

Recent life and work

In 2001, Kusturica directed Super 8 Stories, a documentary road and concert movie about The No Smoking Orchestra, of which he is a band member. He was appointed President of the Jury of the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.

His film, Maradona, a documentary on Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona, was released in Italy in May 2007. It was premiered in France during the Cannes Film Festival in 2008.

His film Promise Me This premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. During 2007, Kusturica prepared a punk opera, Times of the Gypsies. The premiere took place in June 2007, at the Opéra Bastille in Paris. The next month, Kusturica directed the music video to Manu Chao's single "Rainin In Paradize", from the latter's forthcoming album.

On 8 September 2007, Kusturica was appointed a UNICEF National Ambassador for Serbia, alongside Ana Ivanović, Jelena Janković and Aleksandar Đorđević.

Since January 2008, Kusturica annually organizes a private Küstendorf Film Festival. Its first instalment was held at Drvengrad, a village built for his film Life Is a Miracle, from 14 January to 21 January 2008.

His next film, Cool Water, is a comedy set against the background of a Middle East conflict. Filming will start in November 2010 in Germany. It is the first time that Emir Kusturica will direct a film which he did not write.

His autobiography, Smrt je neprovjerena glasina (Death is an Unverified Rumour), was published in October 2010 in Belgrade by Novosti AD. The launch took place on October 26th during Belgrade Book Fair and was attended by Nele Karajlić, Dušan Kovačević, Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić, Vojislav Koštunica. Released only in Serbia, Montenegro, and Republika Srpska, the book was initially printed in 20,000 copies that were quickly sold. Second printing in 32,000 copies was out in November and it too sold within weeks. On December 8th, the third printing in 40,000 copies was out and promoted a day later at Belgrade's Dom Sindikata. In February 2011, fourth printing with further 10,000 copies was out and soon the sale of 100,000th copy was announced. Translations were published in Italy on March 30, 2011 under the title Dove sono in questa storia ("Where am I in this Story") and in France on April 6, 2011 under the title Où suis-je dans cette histoire ?.

Acting

Kusturica first performed in The Widow of St. Pierre (2000), a movie by director Patrice Leconte. In 2002, Emir Kusturica appeared as an electric guitar player/security specialist in The Good Thief, directed by Neil Jordan.

In the French movie L'affaire Farewell (2009), he played the role of Russian KGB agent Colonel Sergei Gregoriev, the central focus of a web of intrigue between warring governments and rival spy agencies. He conveyed effortless charisma, authority and humor.

Music

In 1986–1988, Kusturica played bass guitar in Zabranjeno Pušenje, a rock band from Sarajevo (SR Bosnia and Herzegovina).

Although Kusturica played a minor musical role in the band, it changed its name to Emir Kusturica & No Smoking Orchestra. In 1999, the No Smoking Orchestra recorded a new album, Unza Unza Time, produced by the Universal record company, as well as a music video, directed by Emir Kusturica. The band has toured internationally.

The musician and composer Goran Bregović has created music for several Kusturica's films, including Time of the Gypsies, Arizona Dream, which featured Iggy Pop; and Underground.

Controversy

Work

Kusturica and his work have provoked controversy at home and abroad. Underground, scripted by Dušan Kovačević, was partly financed by state-owned Yugoslav television. It recounted the history of Yugoslavia from World War II until the conflict in the 1990s. Some critics claimed Kusturica propagated a pro-Serbian view of the Yugoslav Wars, including ethnic animosities during WWII. Some Bosnian and French critics claimed the film contained pro-Serb propaganda.

French philosopher and writer Alain Finkielkraut, a supporter of Croatian nationalist leader Franjo Tuđman, denounced the Cannes Film Festival's jury award, saying,

"In recognizing Underground, the Cannes jury thought it was honouring a creator with a thriving imagination. In fact, it has honoured a servile and flashy illustrator of criminal clichés. The Cannes jury highly praised a version of the most hackneyed and deceitful Serb propaganda. The devil himself could not have conceived so cruel an outrage against Bosnia, nor such a grotesque epilogue to Western incompetence and frivolity."

It was later revealed that Finkielkraut had not seen the film before writing criticism. French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy made a film criticizing Underground.

In a discussion with Bernard-Henri Levy, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek said, "I hope we share another point, which is – to be brutal – hatred of Emir Kusturica. Underground is one of the most horrible films that I've seen. What kind of Yugoslav society do you see in Kusturica's Underground? A society where people fornicate, drink, fight – a kind of eternal orgy."

Bosnian novelist Aleksandar Hemon, who was born in Sarajevo and emigrated to the United States before the war, said Underground downplays Serbian atrocities by presenting "the Balkan war as a product of collective, innate, savage madness."

Politics

Kusturica has been criticised for appearing to agree with Slobodan Milošević’s propaganda during the Bosnian War. Andrej Nikolaidis, a Montenegrin writer, stated: "Considering he proclaimed his dead father a Serb, and himself, Emir, an Orthodox Christian, he easily chose his own in the Bosnian War. He recognized them in Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić. He wasn't there to fire cannon barrages, but whenever he could, with his artistic and media get-up he provided them an alibi for every killed Muslim who didn't want to admit that he was originally an 'Orthodox Christian'." The journalist quoted Kusturica's numerous pro-Milošević public statements, and used photos Kusturica hugging Jovica Stanišić (chief of Serbian State Security Service. Stanišić is being tried for war crimes in the Hague. He also showed Kusturica with Milorad Vučelić (director of Serbian television ) and Zoran Lilić (at the time president of Yugoslavia). Kusturica sued Nikolaidis and the Monitor newspaper for civil damages at the Supreme Court of Montenegro. Andrej Nikolaidis, columnist for Montenegrin weekly Monitor, was ordered to pay $6,490 to Kusturica for calling the famed director a "media star of Milosevic's war machinery". The judge ruled that the evidence was not credible enough. In the end they were fined 12,000 euros for breaking the code of journalism by calling him "stupid, ugly and corrupt" in the article. The Bosnian Writers Association sponsored a petition calling for the recall of the verdict, because they felt it denied basic human rights (of free speech). Many believed that Nikolaidis was publicly saying what many who lived in Balkans during the nineties already knew, i.e., that there had been collaboration between Emir Kusturica and the regime of Slobodan Milošević. The petition was supported and signed by prominent intellectuals and many students from former Yugoslavia and abroad.

In October 2010 Kusturica withdrew from the jury of Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival after being publicly criticized and accused by Turkish director Semih Kaplanoğlu and Turkish minister of culture Ertuğrul Günay over his alleged remarks and opinions about the Bosnian War. Turkish media reported that Kusturica repeatedly downplayed the number killed and the rape of Muslim women. It was not clear when Kusturica made those comments, but daily Milliyet said that Kusturica denied the allegations. Public sentiment in Turkey was whipped up against Kusturica to the point that couple of days after Kusturica left Turkey, there were news reports that a mob of youths in Antalya physically assaulted Swiss actor Michael Neuenschwander (in town to promote his movie 180° - Wenn deine Welt plötzlich Kopf steht) because they mistook him for Kusturica due to their apparent physical resemblance.

Personal

Kusturica moved to Serbia, where he lives in a village which was constructed for one of his films. On Đurđevdan (St. George's Day) in 2005, he was baptised into the Serbian Orthodox Church as Nemanja Kusturica (Немања Кустурица) in Savina monastery near Herceg Novi, Montenegro. To his critics who considered this the final betrayal of his Bosnian Muslim roots, he replied that: "My father was an atheist and he always described himself as a Serb. OK, maybe we were Muslim for 250 years, but we were Orthodox before that and deep down we were always Serbs, religion cannot change that. We only became Muslims to survive the Turks."

He traces his family origin before the conversion to Islam, to the Babić family, precisely to a Kusturica that helped build the Arslanagić bridge in the 18th century, that hailed from Bileća (He took the surname Kusturica when Islamized).

At the 2007 parliamentary elections, he gave indirect support to Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica and his right wing Democratic Party of Serbia. In 2007, he also supported the Serbian campaign Solidarity - Kosovo is Serbia, a campaign against the unilateral separation of the Serbian province of Kosovo.

He is currently living in Drvengrad, Serbia, the village which he had built for his film Life Is a Miracle. Kusturica holds Serbian and French citizenships.

Marriage and family

Emir Kusturica is married to Maja Mandić, daughter of a "Bosnian Serb (Miloš Mandić) and a Slovene-Croat (Ljerka Kušec), making their children, Stribor, 30, and Dunja, 24, Slovene-Croat-Bosnian-Muslim Serbs." Their children are much like the mixed population of the former Yugoslavia.

Filmography

As director

• Guernica, 1978, short
• The Brides Are Coming (Nevjeste dolaze), 1978, TV film
• Buffet Titanic (Bife Titanik), 1979, TV film
• Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (Sjećaš li se Dolly Bell), 1981
• Nije čovjek ko ne umre, 1984, TV film
• When Father Was Away on Business (Otac na službenom putu), 1985
• Time of the Gypsies (Dom za vešanje), 1988
• Arizona Dream, 1993
• Underground (Podzemlje), 1995
• Black Cat, White Cat (Crna mačka, beli mačor), 1998
• Super 8 Stories, 2001, documentary
• Life Is a Miracle (Život je čudo), 2004
• Promise Me This (Zavet), 2007
• Maradona, 2008, documentary
• Tweaker's Delight, 2011 (pre-production)
• Cool Water, 2012 (pre-production)
• Wild Roses, Tender Roses, 2012 (pre-production)

As actor

• The Widow of Saint-Pierre, 2000
• The Good Thief, 2002
• L'affaire Farewell (Farewell), 2010

Awards

• 1st prize on Student's Film Festival in Karlovy Vary, (1978) for Guernica
• Golden Lion for "Best First Work" in Venice Film Festival, (1981) for Do You Remember Dolly Bell?
• Golden palm Cannes Film Festival, (1985) for When Father Was Away on Business
• FIPRESCI prize Cannes Film Festival, (1985) for When Father Was Away on Business
• Best Foreign Language Academy Award Nomination, (1985) for When Father Was Away on Business
• Best Director award at Cannes Film Festival, (1989) for Time of Gypsies
• Silver Bear at Berlin Film Festival, (1993) for Arizona Dream
• Golden Palm at Cannes Film Festival, (1995) for Underground
• Silver Plate of best documentary at Chicago International Film Festival, (2001) for Super 8 Stories
• Cinema Prize of the French Education System at Cannes Festival (2004) for Life is a Miracle
• Best European Union Film at César Awards, (2005) for Life is a Miracle
• Philippe Rotthier European Architecture Award, (2005) for Küstendorf village in Serbia
• On 10 February 2007, Kusturica received Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France's highest order in recognition of significant contribution to the arts.
• Emir Kusturica is the winner of the Philippe Rotthier European Architecture Award for his Küstendorf ethnic village project (also called Drvengrad – a “wooden town”) on Mt. Zlatibor, Serbia, in 2005. The prize is awarded every three years by the Brussels Foundation for Architecture.
• In 2004, The Prix de l'Education nationale (National Education Prize) honored Emir Kusturica and his film Život je čudo (Life is a Miracle).

References

1. Emir Kusturica. "Biography". Kust.com. Retrieved 9 December 2010.
2. "Politika". Politika.rs. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
3. "Ministere de la culture". Culture.gouv.fr. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
4. Croatia. "INTERVIEW: EMIR NEMANJA KUSTURICA, ''Globus'', February 2009". Globus.com.hr. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
5. ^ Halpern, Dan (8 May 2005). "The (Mis)Directions of Emir Kusturica". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 March 2010.
6. "Biography". Kustu.com. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
7. "Festival de Cannes: Promise Me This". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 20 December 2009.
8. Emir Kusturica i Voja Brajović najavili su prvi filmski festival „Kustendorf" u Drvengradu na Mokroj Gori, PRESS, 14.12.2007
9. http://www.novosti.rs/vesti/kultura.71.html:305333-Kusturica-hit-Sajma
10. http://english.blic.rs/Culture-Showbiz/7046/When-not-said-is-more-important-than-said
11. http://kustu.com/w2/en:smrt_je_neprovjerena_glasina
12. Trece;Novosti
13. Bakice umalo nisu stradale zbog Kuste;MTS Mondo, 9 December 2010
14. „Neprovjerena glasina“ dobila stohiljaditog čitaoca;Večernje novosti, 17 February 2011
15. Dove sono in questa storia ISBN 978-8807018398
16. Où suis-je dans cette histoire ? ISBN 978-2709619158
17. ^ "Emir Kusturica: Encyclopedia II – Emir Kusturica – Controversy". Experiencefestival.com. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
18. "Emir Kusturica: Encyclopedia II – Emir Kusturica – Life and work". Experiencefestival.com. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
19. ^ Serb director tries for third triumph, The Guardian, 15 May 2004
20. ^ Dispute Leads Bosnian to Quit Films, The New York Times, 5 December 1995
21. http://books.google.com/books?id=KZf7iYGxTfIC&lpg=PA120&ots=Q7FhIC_Mfc&dq=finkielkraut%20tudjman&pg=PA120#v=onepage&q=finkielkraut%20tudjman&f=false
22. "The polemic 'Underground'". Kustu.com. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
23. Cédric Housez,Voltaire. ""Alain Finkielkraut and Bernard Henry Lévy, two propagandists of the 'clash of civilizations' " [Voltaire]". Voltairenet.org. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
24. "Faut-il brûler Underground?". Lexpress.fr. 19 October 1995. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
25. Notes from the underground: the ... – Google Books. Books.google.com. 2 June 1995. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
26. "Slavoj Žižek interview". Euronews, shown again on Youtube.com. 13 September 2008. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
27. Halpern, Dan (8 May 2005). "The (Mis)Directions of Emir Kusturica". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 March 2010.
28. "Victoria Advocate". Newsbank. 17 November 2004. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
29. Il caso Kusturica, 23 February 2005 (in Italian)
30. "Blic Online | Vrhovni sud Crne Gore presudio u korist Kusturice". Blic.rs. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
31. ^ Kusturica Quits Film Festival Jury in Turkey – ABC News. Abcnews.go.com. Retrieved on 11 October 2010.
32. Prebijen glumac koji liči na slavnog reditelja – Kusta: Dobro je da sam otišao iz Turske; Blic, 16 October 2010
33. ^ "Article about Kusturica's religion on". Pionirovglasnik.com. 26 July 2005. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
34. "News of Kusturica's baptism". Hem.passagen.se. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
35. Emir Kusturica (4 March 2005). "An interview for Guardian". London: Film.guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
36. Glas Javnosti, 19. Jan 2001, Ko je ovaj čovek: Emir Kusturica, by Zorica Vulić
37. "Film director Emir Kusturica attends the final pre-elections rally of Democratic Party of Serbia in Belgrade 17 January 2007". (Reuters), 2space.net. 1 January 1970. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
38. Iva Martinović (12 November 2007). "Radio Slobodna Evropa article". Slobodnaevropa.org. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
39. "Festival de Cannes: Time of the Gypsies". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 1 August 2009.
40. "Festival de Cannes: Underground". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 5 September 2009.

Bibliography

• Gocic, Goran: "The Cinema of Emir Kusturica: Notes from the Underground", Wallflower Press, London, 2001.
• Irodanova, Dina: Emir Kusturica. London. British Film Institute 2002.
• Imsirevic, Almir: "Based on a Truth Story", Sarajevo, 2007.

External links

• No Smoking Orchestra – Band official site
• Komuna Belgrade
• Interview with Kusturica on Black Cat, White Cat
• RTS interview, 26 April 2006 Template:Sr icon
• Etno selo Nemanje Kusturice na Mećavniku, May, 2007 – www.ciode.ca Template:Sr icon

v t e Cinema of Serbia
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• Use dmy dates from September 2010
• 1954 births
• Living people
• People from Sarajevo
• Serbian film directors
• Yugoslav musicians
• Eastern Orthodox Christians from Serbia
• Cinema of Yugoslavia
• Bosnia and Herzegovina film directors
• Golden Arena winners
• Roberto Rossellini Prize recipients
• Venice Best Director Silver Lion winners
• Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
• Bass guitarists
• Alumni of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague
• Serbian former Muslims
• Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy from Islam
• UNICEF people
• Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina