In 1978, Kusturica graduated from the
film school (FAMU) at the
Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, which is why he is sometimes considered a part of the
Prague 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-TV
short films in Yugoslavia.
1980s He made his feature film debut in 1981 with
Do You Remember Dolly Bell?, a coming-of-age drama that won the prestigious
Silver Lion for Best First Work at
that year's
Venice Film Festival. The same year, at age 27, he became a lecturer at the newly established
Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo, a job he held until 1988. He was also art director of Open Stage Obala (
Otvorena scena Obala). Kusturica's second feature film,
When Father Was Away on Business (1985), earned a at
Cannes and five Yugoslav movie awards, as well as a nomination for an American
Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. In 1989 he earned more accolades for
Time of the Gypsies, a film about
Romani culture and the exploitation of their youth. In 1989 he was a member of the jury at the
16th Moscow International Film Festival.
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, a noted Serbian playwright. Kusturica and his work have provoked controversy at home and abroad.
Underground 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.
Sarajevo-born novelist
Aleksandar Hemon, who emigrated to the United States before the war, said
Underground downplayed
Serbian atrocities by presenting "the Balkan war as a product of collective, innate, savage madness." French philosopher and writer
Alain Finkielkraut, a supporter of the Croatian president
Franjo Tuđman during the 1990s, denounced the Cannes Film Festival's jury award, saying
it was honouring a creator with a thriving imagination and that the jury
praised a version of the most hackneyed and deceitful Serb propaganda. French philosopher
Bernard-Henri Lévy made a film criticizing
Underground. 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 for
Black Cat, White Cat, a farcical comedy set in a Gypsy (
Romani) settlement on the banks of the
Danube. The music for the film was composed by the Belgrade-based band
No Smoking Orchestra.
2000s 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 by Kusturica, a documentary on
Argentine football star
Diego Maradona, was released in Italy in May 2007. It premiered in France during the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. His film
Promise Me This premiered at the
2007 Cannes Film Festival. In June 2007, Kusturica directed the music video to
Manu Chao's single "
Rainin in Paradize", from the latter's
La Radiolina album. In 2002 Kusturica became a
UNICEF National Ambassador for Serbia. Since January 2008 he has organized the annual private
Küstendorf Film Festival. Its first installment was held at
Drvengrad/Küstendorf, a village built for his film
Life Is a Miracle, from 14 to 21 January 2008. His next film,
Cool Water, is a comedy set against the background of a
Middle East conflict. Filming started in November 2010 in Germany.
2010s (2014)
Andrej Nikolaidis, a
Montenegrin writer and columnist, criticized Kusturica for appearing to agree with
Slobodan Milošević's propaganda during the
Bosnian War. Kusturica sued Nikolaidis and the
Monitor 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". The judge ruled that the evidence was not credible enough. 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. 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 Turkey's minister of culture
Ertuğrul Günay over his alleged remarks and opinions about the
Bosnian War. 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. Turkish media reported that Kusturica repeatedly downplayed the number of people killed and the rape of Muslim women during the war. Later, Neuenschwander's press agent said there was no physical assault and that Neuenschwander was verbally abused by a small group. Kusturica later commented on the incident: At the
64th Cannes Film Festival, held 11–22 May 2011, Kusturica presided over the jury of the
Un Certain Regard section of the festival's official selection. On 14 May, in
Cannes, he was invested with the insignia of Chevalier of the
Legion of Honour, France's highest decoration. In September 2012, Kusturica accepted an offer to be the head juror of the first
Saint 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 the
Order of St. Sava, First Class, for his "selfless care and presentation of the Serbian nation in the world", on 12 May 2012. During the last months of 2013, Kusturica started shooting a documentary on the life of Uruguayan president
José Mujica, whom he considers "the last hero of politics".
El Pepe: A Supreme Life was released in 2018.
2020s Kusturica announced that he will be filming his next project in
Moscow. The film will be based on works of Russian writers
Dostoyevski,
Gogol and
Tolstoy. It is titled
Just One More Time. He was also planning to direct, in 2024,
The Engineer of Easy Walks to be shot in
Sochi.
Acting After numerous film cameo appearances over the years, Kusturica's first sizable acting role was in
The Widow of St. Pierre, a 2000 movie by director
Patrice Leconte, as a convict on the French island colony of
Saint Pierre. In 2002, 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 a
KGB agent, Colonel Sergei Gregoriev. In
On the Milky Road (2016), he played Kosta, a milkman and falconer. ==Musical career==