Emir Kusturica was born in Sarajevo, capital of current Bosnia-Herzegovina. Although muslim bosnian, his family has orthodox Slavic origins. His father Murat, like million of other Yugoslavs, had given up his faith to become communist. Emir, their only son, also denounced Communism to become... director. Young Emir, maybe in opposition to his "good" family (his father worked for the Ministry of Information of Bosnia-Herzegovina), was friend with some "bad guys" of Sarajevo. So, his parents decided at 18 years to send him abroad to learn the cinema, at the prestigious FAMU, the school of Prague where for exemple Milos Forman or Goran Paskaljevic had studied.

Quickly appreciated, his first short films show the talent of the young student. His teacher had already noticed it : Guernica, but especially Titanic which denounces Jewish racism under the Second World War, had already made a favorable impression and he said to him: "the only thing that you will leave behind you will be your films; the end justifies the means". This sentence marked and helped him concluding his first personal projects, in particular the very risky When father was away on business, denouncing the political deportations of Communism, subject still highly taboo in Yugoslavia then, i.e. little after the death of Tito. Until then, Emir had always filmed in his own language, even making speaking the actors with their regional accents, as for better marking the pluralism of Yugoslavia : for that reason, Do you remember Dolly Bell ? is the first Yugoslav film which was not filmed in Serbo-Croatian (the equivalent of the "BBC english"). Emir films then abroad in romany for the Time of the gypsies and then in English for Arizona Dream. But at that time, Emir did not feel confortable anymore in Yugoslavia. His country was in war. The filming of Arizona Dream was even stopped several months during the strongest combats, Emir being unable to work... Following this experiment, he felt the need to tell the Westerners what was the history of his country, through his most ambitious work : Underground. With the feeling to have made his "duty", and especially the feeling not to be understood, Emir thought of withdrawing cinema (see the polemic on Underground)... but changed his mind and decided to work on a lighter subject, and make "happy ends" with his last films : Black Cat White Cat and Super 8 Stories.

www.dhennin.com/kusturica/v2/biographie_en.html