---
name: "Emir Kusturica"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/emir-kusturica"
fi1m_id: "emir-kusturica"
imdb_id: "nm0001437"
tmdb_id: 15254
wikidata_id: "Q94882"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "24 November 1954"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "director"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-17T22:07:06.632344+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Emir Kusturica

## Identity

Emir Kusturica

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/emir-kusturica
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** emir-kusturica
- **IMDb ID:** nm0001437
- **TMDB ID:** 15254
- **Wikidata ID:** Q94882
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emir_Kusturica, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q94882, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001437/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/15254

Director. Born 24 November 1954 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 24 November 1954, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
- **Also known as:** Емир Кустуриця, Емір Кустуріца, Эмир Кустурица, ემირ კუსტურიცა, 에밀 쿠스트리차, 에미르 쿠스트리차
- **Cannes Film Festival:** 3 Cannes prizes (3 won)
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emir_Kusturica, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q94882, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001437/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/15254

## Streaming the US now

- **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Underground*](https://film.one/film/underground.md) (66)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Emir Kusturica

> Emir Kusturica organises crowded scenes with assurance and finds cruel humour in human weakness. We recommend him cautiously: his appetite for slapstick can wear us down, and the people too often matter less than the activity around them.

In *Underground* (1995), there is often so much happening within the image that following any one person becomes difficult. Emir Kusturica has the confidence to sustain these crowded scenes, and there is considerable pleasure in watching him organise them. Slapstick makes heroic behaviour look ridiculous, giving the bustle a purpose beyond keeping us entertained. We recommend the film cautiously, because he also keeps sequences going beyond the point at which their jokes have done their work.

*Do You Remember Dolly Bell?* (1981), his first feature, draws on Sarajevo youth. *When Father Was Away on Business* (1985) looks at 1950s Yugoslavia through a child’s eyes. With *Time of the Gypsies* (1988), Roma lives and the combination of tragedy and farce become central to his cinema. After the US-made *Arizona Dream* (1993) and *Underground*, *Black Cat, White Cat* (1998) turns to screwball comedy, returning to Roma life.

In *Underground*, cinematographer Vilko Filač makes the elaborate action absorbing even when the story is hard to follow. Miljen ‘Kreka’ Kljaković’s production design gives Kusturica the scale his crowded scenes need. The director knows how to use that space, sustaining passages whose sheer amount of activity might defeat a less assured organiser. The difficulty is that we sometimes become more interested in looking at everything than in following what anyone is doing.

The screenplay, written with Dušan Kovačević, finds its strongest material in black-comic subplots, where deceit produces situations worth watching. We laughed at the slapstick in *Underground*, then grew tired as sequence after sequence returned to the same noisy pitch. The cruel humour sometimes makes the suffering harder to dismiss, and those moments give the comedy a seriousness its delivery can disguise. Too often, though, exaggerated behaviour leaves the characters difficult to care about.

His work with non-professional actors in *Time of the Gypsies* shows that he can give performances the attention they need. In *Underground*, the appetite for more action too often takes over, and 170 minutes is a long time to spend wishing a director would stop adding things. Try it for the black comedy and the staging, provided a few stretches of impatience will not spoil the evening.

## Biography

Emir Kusturica is a Bosnian-born Serbian film director, screenwriter, actor and musician. He studied at the FAMU film academy in Prague, graduating in 1978, and began his career directing for television in Sarajevo before making his feature debut with *Do You Remember Dolly Bell?* (1981).

Kusturica is known for films including *When Father Was Away on Business* (1985), *Time of the Gypsies* (1988), *Arizona Dream* (1993), *Underground* (1995), for which he also wrote the screenplay, *Black Cat, White Cat* (1998) and *Life Is a Miracle* (2004). He won the Palme d'Or at Cannes twice, for *When Father Was Away on Business* and *Underground*. Since the mid-2000s his primary residence has been Drvengrad, a village in Serbia that he developed from sets built for *Life Is a Miracle*.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, web.archive.org, empireonline.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Underground* (1995), Fi1m 66, as Dealer — [page](https://film.one/film/underground.md)

## Complete filmography (44)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *El Pepe: A Supreme Life* (2019), Director
- *Balkan Line* (2019), as Taxi driver
- *Untold Stories of Eastern Europe* (2018), series, Actor
- *On the Milky Road* (2016), as Kosta · Director, Writer
- *Words with Gods* (2014), as Monk (ep. "Our Life") · Director, Writer
- *The Ice Forest* (2014), as Secondo
- *The Scapegoat* (2013), as Stojil
- *The Whirl* (2012), as Bogdanov otac
- *7 Days in Havana* (2012), as Actor (segment "Jam Session")
- *Mozzarella Stories* (2011), Executive Producer
- *Nicostratos the Pelican* (2011), as Démosthène
- *Farewell* (2009), as Sergei Grigoriev
- *Maradona by Kusturica* (2008), Director, Writer
- *Le Temps des Gitans Punk Opera* (2007), Director
- *Promise Me This* (2007), Director, Producer, Writer
- *Gucha!* (2006), Producer
- *Secret Journey* (2006), as Harold
- *All the Invisible Children* (2006), Director, Executive Producer
- *Le court des grands* (2005), Director
- *TropiAbbas* (2005), Music
- *Life Is a Miracle* (2004), Director, Writer, Producer
- *The Good Thief* (2003), as Vladimir
- *Strawberries in the Supermarket* (2003), as General · Producer, Executive Producer
- *Super 8 Stories* (2001), Director
- *The Widow of Saint-Pierre* (2000), as Joseph Auguste Néel
- *Black Cat, White Cat* (1998), Director, Writer
- *Once Upon a Time There Was a Country* (1996), series, as Švercer oružja · Director, Writer, Creator
- *Underground* (1995), as Dealer · Director, Screenplay — Fi1m 66, [page](https://film.one/film/underground.md)
- *Arizona Dream* (1993), Director, Story
- *Bolo* (1991), Thanks
- *Time of the Gypsies* (1990), series, Director, Creator
- *Time of the Gypsies* (1988), Director, Writer
- *Byzantine Empire '88* (1988), as Mangup u tramvaju
- *The Worker's Life* (1987), Writer
- *The Magpie Strategy* (1987), Writer
- *When Father Was Away on Business* (1985), Director
- *Do You Remember Dolly Bell?* (1981), Director, Writer
- *Buffet Titanic* (1979), Director, Writer
- *Guernica* (1978), Director, Writer
- *The Brides Are Coming* (1978), Director
- *Walter Defends Sarajevo* (1972), as Omladinac
- *Crime No Punishment*, Director
- *The Woman from Čurug*, Director, Writer
- *Magic Bus*, Director

## Gallery

- ![Emir Kusturica](https://film.one/media/person/86330/gallery-ae70a4b444de.jpg) Emir Kusturica — Пресс-служба Президента Российской Федерации, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Kusturica_2024.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Emir Kusturica & No Smoking Orchestra (2017)](https://film.one/media/person/86330/gallery-e85866706cb0.jpg) Emir Kusturica & No Smoking Orchestra (2017) — Nicola Di Nunzio, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/An_image_of_Emir_Kusturica.jpg/1280px-An_image_of_Emir_Kusturica.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Ortszentrum von Bosansko Grahovo, Bosnien. (2018)](https://film.one/media/person/86330/gallery-d514265a324c.jpg) Ortszentrum von Bosansko Grahovo, Bosnien. (2018) — Julian Nyča, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Bosansko_Grahovo_2018_4.jpg/1280px-Bosansko_Grahovo_2018_4.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![corre a las colinas](https://film.one/media/person/86330/gallery-df5a7933f215.jpg) corre a las colinas — martin moran, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Corre_a_las_colinas_-_panoramio.jpg/1280px-Corre_a_las_colinas_-_panoramio.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Emir Kusturica](https://film.one/media/person/86330/gallery-c51dcf727191.jpg) Emir Kusturica — Image via TMDB
- ![Emir Kusturica](https://film.one/media/person/86330/gallery-866cbe158759.jpg) Emir Kusturica — Image via TMDB
- ![Emir Kusturica](https://film.one/media/person/86330/gallery-43ce18946a9c.jpg) Emir Kusturica — Image via TMDB
- ![Emir Kusturica & No Smoking Orchestra - 2017 Beja /Portugal](https://film.one/media/person/86330/gallery-368efd095847.jpg) Emir Kusturica & No Smoking Orchestra - 2017 Beja /Portugal — Nicola Di Nunzio, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/DNN_6605.jpg/1280px-DNN_6605.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Emir Kusturica & No Smoking Orchestra (2017)](https://film.one/media/person/86330/gallery-d68787f0a157.jpg) Emir Kusturica & No Smoking Orchestra (2017) — Nicola Di Nunzio, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/DNN_6642.jpg/1280px-DNN_6642.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)

## Awards

### Cannes Film Festival — 3 won

- 1995: Palme d'Or (won), for *Underground*
- 1989: Cannes Best Director Award (won), for *Time of the Gypsies*
- 1985: Palme d'Or (won), for *When Father Was Away on Business*

### Venice Film Festival — 2 won

- 2016: Golden Lion (won)
- 1998: Golden Lion (won)

### Berlin International Film Festival — 1 won

- 1993: Silver Bear (won)

### Other awards — 12 won, 1 nominated

- Czech Medal of Merit, 1st class 2019: Czech Medal of Merit, 1st class (won)
- Order of St. Sava 2018: Order of St. Sava (won)
- Commander of the Order of the Star of Italy 2017: Commander of the Order of the Star of Italy (won)
- Order of Friendship 2016: Order of Friendship (won)
- Svetozar Ćorović Award 2013: Svetozar Ćorović Award (won)
- Annual award ACFK 2011: Annual award ACFK (won)
- Knight of the Legion of Honour 2010: Knight of the Legion of Honour (won)
- Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres 2007: Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres (won)
- César Award for Best Film from the European Union 2005: César Award for Best Film from the European Union (won), for *Life Is a Miracle*
- European Film Award for Best Documentary 2001: European Film Award for Best Documentary (nominated), for *Super 8 Stories*
- Silver Lion 1998: Silver Lion (won)
- FIPRESCI Prize of the Festival de Cannes 1985: FIPRESCI Prize of the Festival de Cannes (won)
- FIPRESCI Prize at Festival of Venice 1981: FIPRESCI Prize at Festival of Venice (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/emir-kusturica