Director Danis Tanović is one of the only film artists from Bosnia and Herzegovina ever to win an American Film Academy Award. Standing on the stage of Hollywood's Kodak Theatre eight years ago, Tanović accepted the well-known golden statue and said: "This is for my country, Bosnia and Herzegovina!”. Since then he has continued to enrich the domestic and international cultural scene with new achievements.
Aside from the Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film, Tanović's No Man's Land (2001) won a series of other outstanding awards, including a Golden Globe and a Best Script Award in Cannes.
No Man's Land tells the story of two soldiers, a Bosniak and a Serb, who find themselves in the same trench and start arguing over who caused the war. Tanović's achievement is truly great: in a mere 98 minutes he manages to portray the pointlessness and tragedy of the armed conflict in what was once the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but also to show the role played in it by the international community.
Different genres
Tanović has recently opted to make films of different genres. The second feature length film he released was Hell (2005), written by Krzysztof Kieslowski and inspired by Dante Alighieri's Inferno. It won positive criticism and acclaim both for its directing and acting, with special mentions for leading actor Emmanuelle Beart. Tanović has said that he holds the works of Kieslowski in high regard, and that Hell was an attempt to pay homage to this great Polish director.
Nowadays, Tanović is still working with the film world's elite. The release of his latest film Triage, based on Scott Anderson's book by the same name and starring Christopher Lee, Paz Vega, and Colin Farrell, is scheduled for the autumn of 2009. The film required that Farrell lose 10 kilograms for his role and, if one is to trust the media, the famous Irishman prepared for filming on a strict coffee-and-tuna diet.
Another upcoming project Tanović is working on is Circus Columbia, a film he will be signing as director and screenwriter. The movie is based on a novel by a Herzegovinian writer and journalist Ivica Djikić and the leading roles have been offered to Mira Furlan and Miki Manojlović, actors from Zagreb and Belgrade who have acquired considerable international reputation.
Tanović has already made arrangements for the spring of 2010, when he will be filming a project starring Liam Neeson, inspired by a story by Bono Vox, the singer of U2.
Danis Tanović was born in 1969. When the war broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, Tanović left his studies of film at Sarajevo's Academy of Stage Arts and joined the Bosnian Army, first as a regular soldier, and later as a member of a film crew. During the war he recorded everything important that happened around him, and this material has been used in numerous films and stories on the siege of Sarajevo and the conflict. In 1994 near the end of the war, Tanović left for Belgium to continue his studies. There he met and married his wife, Maelys de Rudder, and in 1998 he acquired Belgian citizenship.
After spending some time also in Paris, Tanović eventually returned a few years ago to Sarajevo, where he now lives and works with his wife and five children. In his own words, Tanović considers himself "a European," and has said he feels his country is "the world of film." Aside from his devotion to his work, the famed director has also set out to change Bosnia's future through politics.
In 2008, Tanović partook in the creation of a new political party in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is called Our Party. "The way things are now, we have two choices: neatly pack our bags and leave with our families, and treat homesickness with occasional visits, or try to change something," said Tanović at the party's founding. He defined his goal to "alter the widespread belief that nothing can be done and that we're doomed to this kind of life."
"For Bosnia and Herzegovina anything other than the civil option would be disastrous," he said.Aside from being a leading director, a screenwriter and a political party founder, Danis Tanović plays several musical instruments and mostly does the scores for his films himself. He has said that he might even start a band one day. Perhaps the best description of Tanović was given by his fans that waited for him at the Sarajevo airport after his Oscar victory in 2002 bearing signs and chanting: "There's no one like Danis."
