BiH director Danis Tanović was chosen to be the president of the 19th Sarajevo Film Festival which will be held in July.
Tanović was born in Sarajevo and his film ‘No Mans’ Land’ which he wrote and directed, and which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival that same year. No Man’s Land went on to win the Award for Best Screenplay (Prix du scénario) at Cannes, followed by numerous awards, including the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2001, while in competition with French Amélie. Tanović was presented the Oscar by John Travolta and Sharon Stone. Briefly after, Tanović thanked everyone who worked with him on the film and supported its creation. He ended his acceptance speech by saying, “This is for my country, Bosnia”, expressing his devotion and patriotism to his home country.
Tanović’s second feature project was L’Enfer, completed in 2005, from the screenplay by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz. The film marked the second installment in the Polish duo’s projected trilogy Heaven (filmed by Tom Tykwer in 2002), Hell and Purgatory. Inspired by Euripides’ Medea, L’Enfer explores the lives of three sisters, “each locked in her own unhappiness, nursing a secret flower of misery, the seed for which was planted by their late father with a terrible incident in their girlhood” (from a review by Peter Bradshaw).
In June 2011, he was bestowed with an “honoris causa” doctorate by the University of Sarajevo. His 2013 film An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker premiered in competition at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival where it won two prices: Best Actor and the Jury Grand Prix (Silver Bear).
Currently, he works as a professor of film directing at Akademija Scenskih Umjetnosti in Sarajevo.
