Emir Kusturica

Emir Kusturica (Serbian Cyrillic: Емир Кустурица; born 24 November 1954) is a Serbian filmmaker, actor and musician. He also has French citizenship. He has been recognized for several internationally acclaimed feature films, as well as his projects in town-building. He has competed at the Cannes Film Festival on five occasions and won the Palme d'Or twice (for When Father Was Away on Business and Underground), as well as the Best Director prize for Time of the Gypsies. Kusturica has also won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for Arizona Dream and a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival for Black Cat, White Cat. In addition he was also named Commander of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.Since the mid-2000s, Kusturica's primary residence has been in Drvengrad, a town built for his film Life Is a Miracle, in the Mokra Gora region of Serbia. He had portions of the historic village reconstructed for the film. He has been a member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of the Republika Srpska since 9 November 2011.