Emir Kusturica

Birthday: 24 November 1954, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia

Height: 191 cm

A Serbian film director. Born in 1954 in Sarajevo. Graduated in film directing at the prestigious Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague in 1978. During his studies, he was awarded several times for his short movies including Guernica (1978), which took first prize at the Student's Film Festival in Karlovy Vary. After graduation, he directed several TV movies in his hometown, Sarajevo. In collaboration with the screenwriter Abdulah Sidran in 1981, he made the successful feature debut Sjecas li se Dolly Bell? (1981) which won the Silver Lion for best first feature at the Venice Film Festival. Their subsequent work, human political drama Otac na sluzbenom putu (1985) unanimously won top prize at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival as well as FIPRESCI prize and was nominated for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar. In 1989 he won the Best Director award at Cannes for Dom za vesanje (1988), a film about the life of a gypsy family in Yugoslavia scripted by Gordan Mihic. His first English language movie, Arizona Dream (1993) starring Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis and Faye Dunaway and scripted by his USA student, David Atkins was awarded the Silver Bear at the 1993 Berlin Film Festival. Underground (1995), a bitter surrealistic comedy about the Balkans, scripted by Dusan Kovacevic, won him a second Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1995. Show less «

Milosevic's fundamental mistake was that he thought there were 250 million Serbs, and that he didn't...Show more »

Milosevic's fundamental mistake was that he thought there were 250 million Serbs, and that he didn't have a couple of nuclear bombs in his pocket. Show less «

OK, maybe we were Muslim for 250 years, but we were orthodox before that and deep down we were alway...Show more »

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. Show less «

In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernise, not understanding that the wester...Show more »

In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernise, not understanding that the western world is bipolar, with very good things and very bad things. Since they don't have experience of the west, they even believe that western shit is pie. Show less «

Everything must be sold! Everything must be for sale! Everyone must buy! Everyone must have a Jeep!

Every time I'm shooting a movie I want to kill myself. Because I don't see the light in the end of t...Show more »

Every time I'm shooting a movie I want to kill myself. Because I don't see the light in the end of the tunnel. Show less «

My purpose is to make a movie to make you warm. To give you some heat. Now, this rational world has ...Show more »

My purpose is to make a movie to make you warm. To give you some heat. Now, this rational world has become a place where only what is cool is good. Do you cut the movie on the basis of the beat of modernity or the basis of the beat of your own heart? Show less «

I'm fed up with democracy. In a democracy, people vote for the mayors. I wanted to build a city wher...Show more »

I'm fed up with democracy. In a democracy, people vote for the mayors. I wanted to build a city where I will choose the citizens. Show less «

I am finished with cities. I spent four years in New York, 10 in Paris, and I was in Belgrade for a ...Show more »

I am finished with cities. I spent four years in New York, 10 in Paris, and I was in Belgrade for a while. To me now they are just airports. Cities are humiliating places to live, particularly in this part of the world. Show less «

What you have now is a Hollywood that is pure poison. Hollywood was a central place in the history o...Show more »

What you have now is a Hollywood that is pure poison. Hollywood was a central place in the history of art in the 20th century: it was human idealism preserved. And then, like any great place, it collapsed, and it collapsed into the most awful machinery in the world. Why don't I see a Frank Capra today? Because people aren't like this anymore? People haven't changed that much in 60 years. Show less «

Emir Kusturica

Emir Kusturica's FILMOGRAPHY

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