Emir Kusturica
Emir Kusturica (Serbian Cyrillic: Емир Кустурица; born 24 November 1954) is a Bosnian-born Serbian[4][1][5] film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and musician. He also has French citizenship.[2] Kusturica is one of the most distinguished European filmmakers active since the mid-1980s, best known for surreal and naturalistic movies that express deep sympathies for people from the margins.[4] He has also been recognized for his projects in town-building. He has competed at the Cannes Film Festival on five occasions and won the Palme d'Or twice (for When Father Was Away on Business and Underground), as well as the Best Director prize for Time of the Gypsies.
Emir Kusturica
24 November 1954
Nemanja Kusturica[3] (since 1995)
Film director, screenwriter, musician
1978–present
Maja Mandić
2
Kusturica has won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for Arizona Dream, a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival for Black Cat, White Cat and a Silver Lion for Best First Work for Do You Remember Dolly Bell?. He has also been made a Commander of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.[6][7]
Since the mid-2000s, Kusturica's primary residence has been in Drvengrad, a town built for his film Life Is a Miracle, in the Mokra Gora region of Serbia. He had portions of the historic village reconstructed for the film.[8] He has been a member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of the Republika Srpska since 9 November 2011.[9] Among other 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.[4]
Early life[edit]
Kusturica was born in Bosnia Sarajevo, the son of Murat Kusturica, a journalist employed at Sarajevo's Secretariat of Information, and Senka (née Numankadić), a court secretary.[10] Emir grew up as the only child of a Muslim secular family[11][12] in Sarajevo, the capital of PR Bosnia and Herzegovina, then a constituent republic within FPR Yugoslavia.[13] As he writes in 1993, his father's mother was "strongly tied to Muslim rites" while his father "did not belong to any cult, he was not religious at all".[12] Kusturica primarily defined himself as Yugoslavian at least until the year 2000.[14]
A lively youth, Kusturica was by his own admission a borderline delinquent while growing up in the Sarajevo neighbourhood of Gorica.[15] Through his father's friendship with the well-known director Hajrudin "Šiba" Krvavac, Kusturica, aged seventeen, got a small part in Krvavac's Walter Defends Sarajevo, a 1972 Partisan film funded by the Yugoslav state.
Writing[edit]
Death is an Unverified Rumour[edit]
Kusturica's autobiography, Death is an Unverified Rumour (Смрт је непровјерена гласина / Smrt je neprovjerena glasina), was published in October 2010 in Belgrade by Novosti. The launch took place on 26 October during the Belgrade Book Fair and was attended by Nele Karajlić, Dušan Kovačević, foreign minister Vuk Jeremić, Vojislav Koštunica, etc.[28][29][30] Initially released only in Serbia, Montenegro, and Republika Srpska, the book's first printing of 20,000 copies quickly sold out. The second printing of 32,000 copies was out in November and it too sold within weeks. On 8 December, the third printing in 40,000 copies was out[31] and promoted a day later at Belgrade's Dom Sindikata.[32] In February 2011, a fourth printing with further 10,000 copies was out and soon the sale of the 100,000th book was announced.[33] The final number of copies sold by the publisher was 114,000.[34]
Translations were published in Italy (translated by Alice Parmeggiani) on 30 March 2011 under the title Dove sono in questa storia ("Where am I in this Story"),[35] in France by JC Lattès on 6 April 2011 as Où suis-je dans cette histoire ?,[36] and in Germany in September 2011 as Der Tod ist ein unbestätigtes Gerücht.[37] In 2012, the book was published in Bulgaria as Cмъpттa e нeпoтвъpдeн cлуx, in Greece as Κι εγώ πού είμαι σ' αυτή την ιστορία;, in Romania as Unde sunt eu în toată povestea asta, and in Hungary as Hogy jövök én a képbe?.
Hundred Pains[edit]
Kusturica's second book was a novel, Hundred Pains (Сто јада / Sto jada), released in Serbia on 24 April 2013 by Novosti a.d.[34][38] in the initial printing of 35,000 copies. On 6 June, the second printing came out in the circulation of 25,000.[39] The book's translated form was released in France in January 2015 by JC Lattès as Étranger dans le mariage.
Why Did I Need This[edit]
His third book, a diary titled Why Did I Need This (Шта ми ово треба / Šta mi ovo treba) was published in October 2018 and for the first time presented at the Belgrade Book Fair.[40]
Controversy[edit]
Work[edit]
Kusturica and his work have provoked controversy at home and abroad.[71] 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 conflicts during the 1990s. Bosnian and French critics claimed the film contained pro-Serb propaganda.[72][73]
French philosopher and writer Alain Finkielkraut, a supporter of the Croatian president Franjo Tuđman during the 1990s,[74] denounced the Cannes Film Festival's jury award, saying: