Special Events 2001 / Super 8 Stories by Emir Kusturica / Germany, Italy 2001
This feature-length documentary by Emir Kusturica is not just about the band No Smoking, whose member the director has been since 1986, but it is also, and mainly, about musicians who reflect the wild, crazy, creative, even dramatic world of the Balkans. The band got together in Yugoslavia at the beginning of the eighties and did its own thing right from the beginning. It sought inspiration in jazz and rock, but drew on a variety of styles of Balkan and Romany melodies. Indeed, the history of the past twenty years, which has of course marked the group’s members, is reflected in what they play. The film begins in 2000 with an exceptionally successful tour. On the way, we get to know the individual musicians, including Kusturica’s son who plays drums. Using archive footage from the most varied sources, a portrait is assembled of their past and private lives. But most of all we have a terrific opportunity to watch them on stage – and even backstage – where they quite literally give their all.
90 min / Black & white, 35 mm
Director Emir Kusturica
/ Dir. of Photography Michel Amathieu, Gianenrico "Gogo" Bianchi, Gerd Breiter, Frederic Burgue, Pascal Caubere, Raimond Goebel, Thosten Königs, Ratko Kusic, Emir Kusturica, Dragan Radivojevic Lav, Chico De Luigi, Petar P
/ Music No Smoking Orchestra
/ Editor Svetolik Miča Zajc
/ Producer Carlo Cresto-Dina, Raimond Goebel
/ Production Pandora Filmproduktion GmbH
/ Cast Stribor Kusturica, Zoran Marjanovic Ceda, Goran Markovski Glava, Nenad Gajin Coce, Emir Kusturica, Drazen Jankovic, Aleksandar Balaban, Nenad Petrovic, Zoran Milosevic, Dejan Sparavalo, Dr. Nelle Karajilic,
Emir Kusturica (b. 1954, Sarajevo) graduated in direction from Prague’s Film Academy (FAMU). He got professional experience working at TV Sarajevo and then in 1981 greeted the film world with Do You Remember Dolly Bell, the work of an already mature artist. Each film that followed was a genuinely creative act testifying to an on-going search for his own, individual creative path. In Yugoslavia he shot When Father Was Away on Business (1985), Time of the Gypsies (1987) and years later Black Cat, White Cat (1998), which featured the music of No Smoking. Abroad he has made Arizona Dream (1992) and Underground (1995). Kusturica has won many prestigious festival awards, plays guitar for No Smoking and lectures at New York’s Columbia University.
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