TSPDT

Key Production Countries: Yugoslavia, France, USA, UK
Key Genres: Drama, Comedy, Romance, Coming-of-Age, Black Comedy, Comedy Drama, Crime, Political Drama
Key Collaborators: Vilko Filac (Cinematographer), Slavko Stimac (Leading Actor), Andrija Zafranovic (Editor), Miki Manojlovic (Leading Character Actor), Mirjana Karanovic (Leading Character Actress), Goran Bregovic (Composer), Miljen Kreka Kljakovic (Production Designer), Predrag Lakovic (Character Actor), Gordan Mihic (Screenwriter), Abdulah Sidran (Screenwriter), Svetolik Zajc (Editor), Srdjan Todorovic (Leading Character Actor)

"In his study The Cinema of Emir Kusturica, critic Goran Gocic writes that the director's work abounds with contradictions, and "potentially strongest among them is the merging of the socially marginal position with an ecstatic experience of life". Long, loud, tumultuous, proudly vulgar and flamboyantly miserablist, Emir Kusturica's oeuvre bears out Gocic's assessment with its inextricable linkage of passion and pain, optimism and cynicism, celebration and squalor." - Jessica Winter (The Rough Guide to Film, 2007)

"Widely regarded as one of the most innovative filmmakers of his generation, Emir Kusturica twice won the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or before the age of 40, and, film for film, it is difficult to think of a more consistently lauded artist than this Bosnian-born director. Possessing the persona of a rock star (he once played bass in the agit-rock band No Smoking and still makes guest appearances with them), he is the antithesis of the Hollywood director, viewing the world as a naif or a dreamer and only helming projects that move him strongly… As a result of his unpopular stand regarding the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, however, he finds himself scorned in his own land, literally a director without a country." - Turner Classic Movies

"An amateur film-maker, he studied at the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague before making his feature debut with Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (1981). His recent films have addressed the history and divisions in his country and the folly of war, using manic, scattershot narratives that convey a buoyant, passionate humanism. He has also acted, and is a member of the rock band No Smoking." - Chambers Film Factfinder, 2006

"Although celebrated in Europe, French-Serbian moviemaker Emir Kusturica has never quite received his due stateside. This is perplexing because the surrealism that is a trademark of his films seems well-suited for American audiences. He’s won the Palme d’Or twice (the second time for his war film Underground in 1995) and won Best Director at Cannes for the four-and-a-half-hour epic Time of the Gypsies. The propulsive energy and dream logic of his films have earned him a reputation in some circles as the Eastern European Federico Fellini. But Thomas Pynchon may be a better comparison: In one segment of Underground, a rogue monkey occupies a homemade tank and fires live rounds at a wedding party." - Caleb Hammond (MovieMaker, 2020)

"Emir Kusturica’s films radiate a universal humanism. While they come out of a specific part of the world—in which the political situation plays no small role in affecting his characters’ lives—they are timeless stories in that they deal with basic human needs, desires, feelings, and experiences." - Rob Edelman (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 2000)

"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." - Emir Kusturica