Biografía

In 1993, he challenged Vojislav Seselj, leader of Serbia's ultranationalist movement, to a duel. He suggested that it should be in the heart of Belgrade, at high noon (!), with any weapon Mr. Seselj chooses. Vojislav Seselj refused this offer saying that he "didn't want to be accused of a murder of an artist".

During the 1995 Belgrade International Film Festival Kusturica knocked down Nebojsa Pajkic, the leader of the New Serbian Right movement. Symbolically enough, Mrs. Pajkic tried to protect her husband by hitting Kusturica with a small bag, a present from Radovan Karadzic, the leader of Bosnian Serbs.

Has not been to Sarajevo, his birthplace, since 1992.

In May of 2005, Kusturica was baptized in a Serbian Orthodox church, taking up the Serbian Christian name Nemanja. It was a very personal gesture to re-affirm his Serbian roots.

Twice winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Cuando papá sale de viaje (1985) and Había una vez un país... (1995). The other directors to have won the Palme twice are: Francis Ford Coppola [La conversación (1974) and Apocalipsis (1979)], Alf Sjöberg [Iris och löjtnantshjärta (1946) and Fröken Julie (1951)], Shôhei Imamura [La balada de Narayama (1983) and La anguila (1997)], Bille August [Pelle el Conquistador (1987) and Las mejores intenciones (1992)], Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne [Rosetta (1999) and L'enfant (2005)], Michael Haneke [El listón blanco (2009) and Amor (2012)], Ken Loach [Vientos de libertad (2006) and Yo, Daniel Blake (2016)] and Ruben Östlund [The Square. La farsa del arte (2017) and El Triángulo De La Tristeza (2022)].

Every time I'm shooting a movie I want to kill myself. Because I don't see the light in the end of the tunnel.

I am finished with cities. I spent four years in New York, 10 in Paris, and I was in Belgrade for a while. To me now they are just airports. Cities are humiliating places to live, particularly in this part of the world.

In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernise, not understanding that the western world is bipolar, with very good things and very bad things. Since they don't have experience of the west, they even believe that western shit is pie.

OK, maybe we were Muslim for 250 years, but we were orthodox before that and deep down we were always Serbs, religion cannot change that. We only became Muslims to survive the Turks.

Everything must be sold! Everything must be for sale! Everyone must buy! Everyone must have a Jeep!