Emir Kusturica

Emir Nemanja Kusturica was born on 24 November 1954 in Sarajevo, main town of current Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is a Serbian filmmaker, actor and musician, recognized for several internationally acclaimed feature films. Even though Bosnian Muslim, his family has Slavic orthodox roots.

Kusturica is a two-time winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes (for “When Father Was Away on Business” and “Underground”), as well as being a Commander of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters). His American debut is the popular absurdist comedy “Arizona Dream”(1993). 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 Romany settlement on the banks of the Danube.

Since the mid-2000s, Kusturica's primary residence is Drvengrad, a village in the Mokra Gora region of Serbia. He had portions of the historic village reconstructed for his film “Life is a Miracle”.