Profile of Emir Kusturica on Famous Like Me

Emir Kusturica (pronounced: koo-stûr-ÉT-sä; Serbian: Емир Кустурица) (born November 24, 1954) is a Bosnian filmmaker born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. With an impressive string of internationally acclaimed features, Kusturica became one of the most creative directors in cinema during the 1980s and '90s.

Life and work

After attending the distinguished FAMU Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (1978), Kusturica began directing Yugoslav television shows. He made an auspicious feature-film debut in 1981 with Do You Remember Dolly Bell?, which won the prestigious Golden Lion at that year's Venice Film Festival.

His sophomore film, When Father Was Away on Business (1985), earned a Golden Palm at Cannes, five Yugoslavian Oscar equivalents, and was nominated for an American Academy award for Best Foreign Film. Both Do You Remember Dolly Bell? and When Father Was Away on Business were made in collaboration with Abdulah Sidran (a famous contemporary Bosnian writer and poet who wrote screenplays for both films with many autobiographical elements from Abdulah's life). In 1989, he earned even more accolades for Time of the Gypsies, a penetrating but magical look into gypsy culture and the exploitation of their youths.

Kusturica continued to make highly regarded films into the next decade, including his American debut, the absurdist comedy Arizona Dream (1993) and the Golden Palm-winning black comedic epic, Underground (1995).

Underground, scripted by Dušan Kovačević, was partly financed by state-owned Yugoslav television and created some controversy. The film detailed the history of Yugoslavia from the beginning of the second World War till the conflict in the 1990's. While some critics claimed Kusturica propagated a pro-Serbian view of the Yugoslav conflict (including animosities during WWII), others held the opinion that his ironic characterizations of Balkan ethnic groups were equally detrimental to all.

In 1998, he won the Venice Film Festival's Silver Lion for Best Direction for Black Cat, White Cat, an outrageous, farcical comedy set in a Gypsy settlement on the banks of the Danube.

In The Widow of St. Pierre 2000, a movie by director Patrice Leconte, Kusturica, here in his first appearance as an actor, has little in the way of lines, but his eyes and body language speak volumes.

In 2001, Kusturica directed Super 8 Stories. This is a typical on the road documentary and concert movie. It's full of inside material, 'read between the lines' nuances and small pleasures offering also a breathless and exhilarating behind-the-scenes look.

In 2002, The Good Thief, directed by Neil Jordan, Emir Kusturica appears as an electric guitar player slash security specialist who constantly plays Jimi Hendrix riffs. In 2004, The Prix de l'Education nationale (National Education Prize) honoured Emir Kusturica and his film Život je Čudo (Life is a Miracle). Life is a Miracle will be considered a national educational tool, complete with an instructional CD-ROM intended to facilitate analysis and debate among film students.

Emir Kusturica is the winner of the Philippe Rotthier European Architecture Award for his Drvengrad (a “wooden town”) ethnic village project on Mt. Zlatibor, Serbia, in 2005. The prize is awarded every three years by the Brussels Foundation for Architecture and is one of the most prestigious Belgian and European awards in this field.

He was President of the Jury of the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.

Controversy

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kusturica remains a controversial figure. The Montenegrian writer Andrej Nikolaidis wrote a newspaper article denouncing Kusturica as one of the "biggest media stars" of the time when Milošević's war propaganda propped people who had something "stupid but patriotic to say" and made news for people who were "insensitive to human suffering, blind to their own guilt, and finally stupid enough to believe in one's own righteousness". Further, Nikolaidis stated: "Considering he proclaimed his dead father a Serb who bowed, and himself, Emir, an "Orthodox Christian", he easily chose "his own" in the war in Bosnia. He recognized them in Karadžić and Mladić. He wasn't there to fire cannon barrages on Crni vrh, Bjelave and Baščaršija, 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 supported his claims by quoting Kusturica's numerous pro-Milošević public statements as well as with photos showing Kusturica hugging Jovica Stanišić (chief of Milošević's secret police, today tried for war crimes in Hague), Milorad Vučelić (head of Milošević's propaganda) and Zoran Lilić (at the time the regime's puppet president).

Kusturica subsequently sued Nikolaidis for libel, and the court in Podgorica, after a questionable trial, awarded him 5,000 Euros in damages. The trial provoked a petition organized by the Bosnian Writers Association, calling for the recall of the verdict, because they felt it denied basic human rights (of free speech), as they feel that Nikolaidis was merely publically saying what everybody 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. They saw it as an act against contra-lustration and promoting the truth about war.

On Đurđevdan of 2005 Emir was baptised to Serbian Orthodox Church as Nemanja Kusturica. The baptism took place in the monastery Savina near Herceg Novi, and his godfather was Vladimir Čukavac, a forester from Mokra Gora, Serbia. Among his fans this move was acknowledged as return to his Serbian roots, while critics say he finally fully betrayed his Muslim roots (Bosnian writer Mile Stojić (Bosnian Croat) said: "... it shall be written that Kusta was first Orthodox Christian in modern history whose father's name was Murat", note also meaning of word emir).

This is what Emir's says about this: "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."

Filmography

• Life Is a Miracle (Život je čudo), 2004
• Super 8 Stories, 2001, documentary
• Black Cat, White Cat (Crna mačka, beli mačor), 1998
• Underground, 1995
• Arizona Dream, 1993
• Time of the Gypsies (Dom za veÅ¡anje), 1988
• When Father Was Away on Business (Otac na službenom putu), 1985
• Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (SjećaÅ¡ li se, Dolly Bell), 1981
• Guernica, 1978, short

Bibliography

• Irodanova, Dina: Emir Kusturica. London. British Film Institute 2002.

Awards

• Guernica, 1st prize on Student's Film Festival in Karlovy Vary, (1978)
• Do You Remember Dolly Bell?, Golden Lion in Venice Film Festival, (1981)
• When Father Was Away on Business, Golden palm Cannes Film Festival, FIPRESCI prize, nominated for Best Foreign Language Academy Award, (1985)
• Time of Gypsies, Best Director award at Cannes Film Festival, (1989)
• Arizona Dream, Silver Bear at Berlin Film Festival, (1993)
• Underground, Golden Palm at Cannes Film Festival, (1995)
• Drvengrad (Woodentown), Philippe Rotthier European Architecture Award, (2005)

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