Emir Kusturica is a Yugoslav and Serbian film director and film actor, acclaimed with prestigious awards at Europe's major film festivals, including two Palmes d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Commander of the Order of the Legion of Honour, foreign member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of the Republic of Srpska. Known also as a member of the folk-rock band The No Smoking Orchestra. Born on November 24, 1954 in Sarajevo, SFR Yugoslavia.
Emir Kusturica has repeatedly voiced vocal support for Vladimir Putin, as well as the political agenda of the Russian leadership.
In 2014, the director supported the annexation of Crimea, describing it as an "organic process." In July 2015, Ukrainian authorities banned performances by Kusturica and his The No Smoking Orchestra in Kyiv citing "repeated public support for Russia's policy toward Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea." Kusturica described the actions of the Ukrainian authorities as a "return to the Middle Ages" and remarked that such prohibitions "occurred during Stalinist times, during the era of totalitarian regimes." He also claimed that the revolution and change of power in Ukraine in 2014 were the outcome of a "conspiracy that brought killers to Maidan who slaughtered their own people."
On November 4, 2016, he accepted the Order of Friendship directly from Putin "for significant contributions to strengthening friendship and cooperation between peoples, and preserving and popularizing the Russian language and culture abroad." During the award ceremony, Kusturica declared that "Vladimir Putin is an individual who brought equilibrium into world politics," and that Russia "played the primary role in defending the world against fascism."
In July 2017, he was entered into the database of the «Myrotvorets» website for deliberate violation of the state border of Ukraine; denial of Russian armed aggression; participation in the legalization of Crimea's annexation and illegal concert touring on the territory of the occupied peninsula.
On February 22, 2022, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that following an offer from Sergey Shoigu, Kusturica agreed to become the chief director of the Central Academic Theater of the Russian Army. Consequently, the Czech film festival Febiofest stripped him of the honorary award granted to him in 2017.
Emir Kusturica’s Position on the War in Ukraine
Emir Kusturica unequivocally supported the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine:
This is a war of the Russian-speaking population of Donbas, Luhansk, and Crimea, who did not want to remain part of a Ukraine hostile toward them. And Russia in February of this year practically wished to put an end to the tragedy that Kyiv had been perpetuating for eight years, more precisely since 2014. Furthermore, this was not a Ukrainian decision, but an American one. Kyiv merely complied, deploying the majority of its armed forces to the Donbas.
Kusturica additionally claimed that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a direct continuation of NATO's bombing campaign in Yugoslavia:
We are witnessing the continuation of Russophobia in the West, which rejected Russia's proposal for partnership following the conclusion of the Cold War.
The filmmaker condemned boycotts of Russian culture, arguing that it represents an inseparable pillar of European culture. "That is precisely what the Nazis did," he emphasized.
In late April 2022, the director remarked that the wave of Russophobia unfolding worldwide reminds him of the persecution of Jewish people prior to 1940. According to Kusturica, the conflict in Ukraine erupted back in 2016, when President Petro Poroshenko supposedly declared that Ukrainian children would attend kindergartens, schools, and universities, while the children of Donbas "would sit in basements."
In March 2024, during a personal meeting with Vladimir Putin, he expressed gratitude to him for waging the so-called "SMO":
I want to thank you for your historical justice... What is unfolding in Ukraine right now represents a struggle for us as well. Those of us who saw what happened with those 'Banderites' in Croatia when they expelled 230,000 Serbs… I believe that this analogy is exceptionally crucial for everyone.
Kusturica to Putin: What is happening in Ukraine is our struggle
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