Kusturica has also been recognized for his projects intown-building. Since the mid-2000s, Kusturica's primary residence has been inDrvengrad, a town built for his filmLife Is a Miracle, in theMokra Gora region of Serbia. He had portions of the historic village reconstructed for the film.[9] He published an autobiography "Smrt je neprovjerena glasina" ('Death Is an Unverified Rumour') in 2010, which was followed by four other books.[4]
Kusturica was born inSarajevo, the son of Murat Kusturica, ajournalist employed at Sarajevo's Secretariat of Information, and Senka (née Numankadić), a court secretary.[10] Emir grew up as the only child of aMuslimsecular family[11][12] inSarajevo, the capital ofPR Bosnia and Herzegovina, then a constituent republic withinFPR 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 asYugoslavian at least until the year 2000.[14]
A lively youth, Kusturica was by his own admission a borderlinedelinquent while growing up in the Sarajevo neighbourhood of Gorica.[15] Through his father's friendship with the well-known directorHajrudin "Šiba" Krvavac, Kusturica, aged seventeen, got a small part in Krvavac'sWalter Defends Sarajevo, a 1972partisan film funded by the Yugoslav state.[16][17]
In 1978, Kusturica graduated from thefilm school (FAMU) at theAcademy of Performing Arts in Prague, which is why he is sometimes considered a part of thePrague film school, an informal group of Yugoslav film directors who studied at FAMU and shared similar influences and aesthetics. After graduating from FAMU, Kusturica began directing made-for-TVshort films in Yugoslavia.[citation needed]
Kusturica continued to make highly regarded films into the next decade, including his American debut, the absurdist comedyArizona Dream (1993).
He won thePalme d'Or for his black comedy epicUnderground (1995), based upon a scenario ofDušan Kovačević, a noted Serbian playwright.[19] Kusturica and his work have provoked controversy at home and abroad.[20]Underground was partly financed by state-ownedYugoslav television. It recounted the history of Yugoslavia from World War II untilthe conflicts during the 1990s. Bosnian and French critics claimed the film contained pro-Serb propaganda.[21][22]Sarajevo-born novelistAleksandar Hemon, who emigrated to the United States before the war, saidUnderground downplayedSerbian atrocities by presenting "the Balkan war as a product of collective, innate, savage madness."[23] French philosopher and writerAlain Finkielkraut, a supporter of the Croatian presidentFranjo Tuđman during the 1990s,[24] denounced the Cannes Film Festival's jury award, sayingit was honouring a creator with a thriving imagination and that the jurypraised a version of the most hackneyed and deceitful Serb propaganda.[22] It was later revealed that Finkielkraut had not seen the film before writing his criticism.[25][26][27]
French philosopherBernard-Henri Lévy made a film criticizingUnderground.[21] In a discussion with Levy, the Slovenian philosopherSlavoj Žižek said:I hope we share another point, which is – to be brutal – hatred of [director] Emir Kusturica.Underground is one of the most horrible films that I've seen. What kind of Yugoslav society do you see in Kusturica'sUnderground? A society where people fornicate, drink, fight – a kind of eternal orgy.[28]
Emir Kusturica taught Film Directing at Columbia University's Graduate Film Division.
In 1998, he won the Venice Film Festival's Silver Lion for Best Direction forBlack Cat, White Cat, a farcical comedy set in a Gypsy (Romani) settlement on the banks of theDanube. The music for the film was composed by the Belgrade-based bandNo Smoking Orchestra.
In 2002 Kusturica became aUNICEF National Ambassador for Serbia.[31]
Since January 2008 he has organized the annual privateKüstendorf Film Festival. Its first installment was held atDrvengrad/Küstendorf, a village built for his filmLife Is a Miracle, from 14 to 21 January 2008.[32] His next film,Cool Water, is a comedy set against the background of aMiddle East conflict. Filming started in November 2010 in Germany.
Andrej Nikolaidis, aMontenegrin writer and columnist, criticized Kusturica for appearing to agree withSlobodan Milošević's propaganda during theBosnian War. Kusturica sued Nikolaidis and theMonitor newspaper for civil damages at the Supreme Court of Montenegro. In the end, Nikolaidis was ordered to pay $6,490 to Kusturica for calling the famed director a "media star of Milosevic's war machinery".[33] The judge ruled that the evidence was not credible enough.[34] In the end Nikolaidis and the paper were fined 12,000 euros for breaking the code of journalism by calling Kusturica "stupid, ugly and corrupt" in the article.[35]
In October 2010, Kusturica withdrew from the jury ofAntalya Golden Orange Film Festival after being publicly criticized and accused by Turkish directorSemih Kaplanoğlu and Turkey's minister of cultureErtuğrul Günay over his alleged remarks and opinions about theBosnian War.[36] The criticism of Kusturica was started by an organization called the Turkish-Bosnian Cultural Federation as soon as Kusturica was announced as a jury member.[37] Turkish media reported that Kusturica repeatedly downplayed the number of people killed and the rape of Muslim women during the war.[36] The daily newspaperMilliyet said Kusturica denied the allegations.[36] Public sentiment in Turkey and in Serbia was such that a couple of days after Kusturica left Turkey, there were unsubstantiated news reports by Serbiantabloids claiming that a mob of Turkish youths inAntalya physically assaulted Swiss actor Michael Neuenschwander (in town to promote his movie180° – Wenn deine Welt plötzlich Kopf steht) because they mistook him for Kusturica due to apparent physical resemblances between the two.[38] Later, Neuenschwander's press agent said there was no physical assault and that Neuenschwander was verbally abused by a small group.[39] Kusturica later commented on the incident:
I did receive a sincere apology from the mayor of AntalyaMustafa Akaydın over what happened. Essentially, I became collateral damage in the ongoing political fight between the central powers from the ruling coalition in Istanbul and the municipal authorities in Antalya where the local power is held by asocial-democrat party. But regardless of everything, this is completely unacceptable on a basic level – when you're an invited guest somewhere, your hosts simply cannot behave in this manner. And this run-in I had was with a part of Turkish society, the part that consists of highly-evolved primitives. I am not a politician and I'm not obliged to comment on and dissect every crime or genocide around the world. And then I got very angry and I told them if they're so sensitive about genocide it would be much better for them to publicly condemn thegenocide they committed against theArmenian people, before having a go at me with accusatory statements. I clearly condemned the crimes in Bosnia, but the 'problem' is that I condemned the crimes committed by all sides, which makes me incompatible with the strategy they have for Bosnia.[40]
At the64th Cannes Film Festival, held 11–22 May 2011, Kusturica presided over the jury of theUn Certain Regard section of the festival's official selection. On 14 May, inCannes, he was invested with the insignia of Chevalier of theLegion of Honour, France's highest decoration.[41]
In September 2012, Kusturica accepted an offer to be the head juror of the firstSaint Petersburg International Film Festival. During the festival he also performed for the residents and guests of Saint Petersburg with his band The No Smoking Orchestra.
Kusturica was awarded theOrder of St. Sava, First Class, for his "selfless care and presentation of the Serbian nation in the world", on 12 May 2012.[42]
During the last months of 2013, Kusturica started shooting a documentary on the life of Uruguayan presidentJosé Mujica, whom he considers "the last hero of politics".[43]El Pepe: A Supreme Life was released in 2018.[44]
Kusturica announced that he will be filming his next project inMoscow. The film will be based on works of Russian writersDostoyevski,Gogol andTolstoy.[45] It is titledJust One More Time.[46] He was also planning to direct, in 2024,The Engineer of Easy Walks to be shot inSochi.[47]
After numerous film cameo appearances over the years, Kusturica's first sizable acting role was inThe Widow of St. Pierre, a 2000 movie by directorPatrice Leconte, as a convict on the French island colony ofSaint Pierre.
In 2002, Kusturica appeared as an electric guitar player/security specialist inThe Good Thief, directed byNeil Jordan.
In the French movieL'affaire Farewell (2009), he played the role of aKGB agent, Colonel Sergei Gregoriev.
InOn the Milky Road (2016), he played Kosta, a milkman and falconer.
In mid-1986, thirty-one-year-old Kusturica started playingbass guitar inZabranjeno Pušenje,[48] a Sarajevan punk/garage rock outfit and part of theNew Primitivism movement.[citation needed] Kusturica, an already established and celebrated Palm d'Or-winning film director, joined the band just after Zabranjeno Pušenje frontmanNele Karajlić had caused a media scandal[49] that led to his legal prosecution on the verbal offence grounds and the band being shadow banned in the Yugoslav media, all of which hurt its commercial prospects and led to three of the six members leaving the group.[50]
Kusturica ended up playing bass on three track from the band's third studio albumPozdrav iz zemlje Safari and composing one of the songs as well as directing amusic video for the track "Manijak" off the album. Though never fully involved in the band's day-to-day activities, Kusturica left Zabranjeno Pušenje in 1988 once the filming ofTime of the Gypsies began.
Kusturica returned to the group in the late 1990s following theBlack Cat, White Cat film and the band's name changed toEmir Kusturica & The 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 been touring internationally since 1999. The musician and composerGoran Bregović has composed music for three of Kusturica's films:Time of the Gypsies,Arizona Dream, which featuredIggy Pop; andUnderground.
Kusturica's autobiography,Death is an Unverified Rumour (Смрт је непровјерена гласина /Smrt je neprovjerena glasina), was published in October 2010 in Belgrade byNovosti. The launch took place on 26 October during the Belgrade Book Fair and was attended byNele Karajlić,Dušan Kovačević, foreign ministerVuk Jeremić,Vojislav Koštunica, etc.[51][52][53] Initially released only inSerbia, Montenegro, andRepublika 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[54] and promoted a day later at Belgrade'sDom Sindikata.[55] In February 2011, a fourth printing with further 10,000 copies was out and soon the sale of the 100,000th book was announced.[56] The final number of copies sold by the publisher was 114,000.[57]
Translations were published in Italy (translated by Alice Parmeggiani) on 30 March 2011 under the titleDove sono in questa storia ("Where am I in this Story"),[58] in France byJC Lattès on 6 April 2011 asOù suis-je dans cette histoire ?,[59] and in Germany in September 2011 asDer Tod ist ein unbestätigtes Gerücht.[60] In 2012, the book was published in Bulgaria asCмъpттa e нeпoтвъpдeн cлуx, in Greece asΚι εγώ πού είμαι σ' αυτή την ιστορία;, in Romania asUnde sunt eu în toată povestea asta, and in Hungary asHogy jövök én a képbe?.
Kusturica's second book was a novel,Hundred Pains (Сто јада /Sto jada), released in Serbia on 24 April 2013 by Novosti a.d.[57][61] in the initial printing of 35,000 copies. On 6 June, the second printing came out in the circulation of 25,000.[62] The book's translated form was released in France in January 2015 by JC Lattès asÉtranger dans le mariage.
His third book, a diary titledWhy Did I Need This (Шта ми ово треба / Šta mi ovo treba) was published in October 2018 and for the first time presented at theBelgrade Book Fair.[63]
In 2022, Kusturica published a book titledVidiš li da ne vidim.[64] The main protagonists of the book are the author and his friend and Austrian Nobel laureate novelistPeter Handke.
During 2007, Kusturica and Nele Karajlić prepared a punk opera,Time of the Gypsies. The initial idea came five years earlier in 2002 from Kusturica's collaboratorMarc di Domenico while the support of theParis Opera directorGerard Mortier got the project rolling. Basing the production on his eponymous 1988 film, Kusturica wrote thelibretto by adapting the story of the Gypsy youth from the Balkans relocating to Italy in order to obtain money for his ill sister's surgery. The director cast young Serbian folk singers Stevan Anđelković and Milica Todorović in the roles of Perhan and Azra, respectively, while the experienced Karajlić took the role of Ahmed Đida. The music in the original movie had been composed byGoran Bregović; however, since Kusturica and he have not been on speaking terms since the late 1990s, those pieces could not be used.[67] The all-new score was composed by Dejan Sparavalo of the No Smoking Orchestra.
The premiere took place in June 2007, at theOpéra Bastille in Paris, to positive reviews.[67][68][69] Following the vast open stage of Bastille, the show was performed in smaller arenas. In March 2008, the production was staged in Paris'Palais des congrès.[70]
In fall 2010, the production was staged in Belgrade atSava Center.
Since 2008, Drvengrad hosts the annualKüstendorf Film and Music Festival,[74] which showcases films and music from all around the world as well as a competition programme for studentshort films. The festival is known for not having ared carpet as well as none of the popular Hollywood festival artifacts.
On 28 June 2011 Kusturica started the construction project ofAndrićgrad (also known asKamengrad, meaningStone Town), located inVišegrad,Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was scheduled to be completed by 2014.[75] Andrićgrad is located several kilometers from Kusturica's first town Drvengrad, in Serbia. Andrićgrad will be used as a filming location for his new film "Na Drini ćuprija", based on the bookThe Bridge on the Drina, byNobel Prize for Literature laureateIvo Andrić. His last name is used in the town name Andrićgrad, meaning "Town of Andrić" inSerbian.
My father was an atheist and he always described himself as aSerb. OK, maybe we were Muslim for 250 years, but we wereOrthodox before that and deep down we were always Serbs, religion cannot change that.[13][79]
Despite the aforementioned conflict of religion, Kusturica refused to see himself as either a Bosnian or Serb. Instead, he had continued to insist that he was simply a Yugoslav.[76]
When his mother was on her deathbed he wanted to find out his ancestry and learnt that the origin of the Kusturica family stemmed from two Orthodox Christian branches.[80] An ancestor of his, who helped build theArslanagić Bridge in the 18th century,[dubious –discuss] hailed fromBileća and the Babić family.[81] According to the studies of geographerJevto Dedijer (1880–1918) in the Bileća region (1902): the Kusturica family lived in ačopor (grouped area, literally "pack") in the village ofPlana; they had eight houses next to the Kozjak family (four houses), northwest across a field from the Avdić family (23 houses).[82] InGranica, there was a family surnamed Kusturica which had left Plana 80 years earlier.[82]
According to the Avdići, their progenitor Avdija Krivokapić, anIslamizedMontenegrin, reportedly was honoured by theSultan for his military service and on the way home toHerzegovina, inKyustendil, he bought agypsy and brought him to Plana; this gypsy was, according to them, an ancestor of the Kusturica family.[82] The story, however, as was common, was motivated by traditional disputes of neighbouring families regarding status in the village.[83] According to Savo Pujić, an ancestor was Hajdarbeg Kusturica who was ačauš (officer) who lived inVolujak and was said to have been fair, having repurchased Muslim slaves, protected Orthodox clergy and hissubject peasants.[83] The name is derived fromkustur, anOld Slavic word for dull knives,sabres, etc., most often referring to sabres.[84]
In 2009, Kusturica signed a petition in support of directorRoman Polanski following his arrest in relation to his 1977sexual abuse charges, who had been detained while traveling to a film festival, which the petition argued would undermine the tradition of film festivals as a place for works to be shown "freely and safely", and that arresting filmmakers traveling to neutral countries could open the door "for actions of which no-one can know the effects."[90][91]
On 4 November 2016 he received theOrder of Friendship from Vladimir Putin in Moscow.[95] He communicated in Russian at the event.[96]
In April 2022, Kusturica signed a petition calling for Serbia not to impose sanctions on Russia after itinvaded Ukraine, with the petition reportedly arguing that alliance between the Russian and Serbian people is the only guarantee for maintaining Serbia's territorial integrity.[97][98]
On 9 May 2025 he attended the2025 Moscow Victory Day Parade where he voiced his support for Putin, calling him an "antiglobalist".[99] Kusturica had attended the parade in2020 as well.[100]
^"Slavoj Žižek interview". Euronews, shown again on Youtube.com. 13 September 2008. Archived from the original on 28 October 2010. Retrieved2 April 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^Gasnier, Paul (12 May 2025)."Quotidien du 12 mai 2025 sur TF1"(video. the interview with Kusturica was lead in English. accessible with French or Belgian IP-Addresses. maybe also other francophone countries like Switzerland.). mm:ss 29:32. Retrieved12 May 2025.
