By Zdravko Ljubas and Boris Babic May 14, 2007, 10:05 GMT
Sarajevo/Belgrade - Emir Kusturica, a Sarajevo-born Serbian filmmaker is to present his new movie Promise Me This at this month's Cannes Film Festival, where he has been one of the few directors to win the event's coveted Palme d'Or prize twice.
While he may have acquired celebrity status in the international cinema world, opinion about him and his works is divided in the former Yugoslavia, in particular in his native Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Against the backdrop of the bloody events during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kusturica abandoned his homeland, sided with the Serb cause and denied any connection with Sarajevo.
Now in his early 50s, Emir Kusturica was born in Sarajevo and essentially grew up on the city's streets.
However, as early as in school in Sarajevo he showed a passion for movies.
In 1978, he graduated from Prague's famous Performing Arts Academy (FAMU) and won for his movie Guernica at the same time.
A short while later, he left his mark on Yugoslav and Bosnia- Herzegovina's moviemaking with his feature film Sjecas li se Dolly Bell? (Do You Remember Dolly Bell) in 1981, Kusturica then went on to make two TV movies.
But the films' nudity and bad language, which would later characterise most of his works, left the critics cold.
Sjecas li se Dolly Bell, describing the life of an ordinary worker's family in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1960s, brought Kusturica the prestigious Golden Lion as the best movie at the Venice Film Festival, one of the world's top three movie festivals.
Abdulah Sidran, his screenwriter for that movie said in an interview with Banja Luka's Nezavisne novine that Kusturica made him write the screenplay for the movie as soon as he heard the story.
Sidran worked again with Kusturica on his next movie - Otac na sluzbenom putu (When Father Was Away on Business) - which also won many awards, including the first Golden Palm (Palm d'Or) for Kusturica at the Cannes Film Festival in 1985.
The movie painted a picture of life in Yugoslavia in the late 1950s through a warm, realistic, sometimes funny, but essentially bitter story as seen through the eyes of a six-year-old Sarajevo boy.
The movie was also nominated for Oscar as the best foreign- language film.
Before the war broke out following the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia in early 1990s, Kusturica made another movie for which he received his second Cannes' Golden Palm award - Dom za vjesanje (Time of the Gypsies).
Describing the lives of gypsies and the grim trade in gypsy children across Europe, the Time of the Gypsies would also be remembered as a product celebrating what has become known as the Sarajevo scene - music and movie art.
Following the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, Kusturica, who was born as Muslim, left his hometown for Belgrade.
He declared himself Serbian and took the side of the late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, who is considered by Bosnia's non-Serb population the country's number one enemy.
He went on to make clear, even in a somewhat vulgar way that he never cared about Bosnia and its recent often traumatic history.
A couple of years ago, he officially changed his religion and name, becoming a Serb Orthodox Christian and taking Nemanja as his baptismal name.
After initially being shocked and frustrated at his behaviour, Bosnia's public slowly started forgetting Kusturica.
Despite the fact that he received more awards, including another Cannes' Golden Palm for the best director for Underground in 1995 and Silver Lion in Venice for Black Cat, White Cat in 1998, Kusturica's post 1990-movies have rarely been shown in Bosnia-Herzegovina cinemas, although video or DVD copies are available for his fans in Bosnia.
The same was true of the Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF) where Kusturica's movies were largely ignored by the organizers of region's largest film festival.
One of the reasons, they said, is that the SFF tries to promote regional movie making. Most of Kusturica's latest movies, however, have been made in French.
His former student, now a well-known Bosnian actor Emir Hadzihafizbegovic said once in an interview that the name of Emir Kusturica 'should be on the front pages of all movie encyclopaedias in Bosnia-Herzegovina.'
'That, however, does not diminish the fact that he is a patriotic bastard who betrayed his people at the worst possible moment,' he said.
Kusturica's old screenwriter, Bosnian author Sidran said he often dreams about him.
'I would love to meet again people from my former life (before the war). When I dream about them, I dream only about the best,' said Sidran.
'I once dreamt that Kusturica was riding a motorcycle and I was sitting behind him. He drove it very fast. When I took that dream down to earth, it was in fact one of the final scenes in (Do You Remember) Dolly Bell,' said Sidran.
That was in the screenplay, he said, now it is in the past.
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