20/01/2005 - Denying the rumours giving the name of Pedro Almodovar, the Festival’s organizers preferred to give the presidential seat to a real specialist on the Croisette winner of two Palmes d'Or

Europe is back at the Head of the Cannes Film Festival 2005. After the US interlude with Quentin Tarantino, the Bosniak Emir Kusturica has indeed been chosen to preside the 58e edition of the most famous film festival in the world (11-22 May 2005). Denying the rumours giving the name of Pedro Almodovar, the Festival’s organizers preferred to give the presidential seat to a real specialist on the Croisette winner of two Palmes d'Or forWhile Father Was Away on Business in 1985 andUnderground in 1995 and a Director’s prize for Time Of The Gypsies in 1989.

Born in 1954 in Sarajevo, Emir Kusturica built his legend with seven feature films directed after graduating from the F.A.M.U film school in Prague. After two award-winning shorts and a TV-fiction, he won the Golden Lion in Venice for his first feature film Do You Remember Dolly Bell?. He was fast thrown into the gotha of world cinema and success with (While Father Was Away on Business , Palme d’or winner in 1985. The Croisette fell in love again for his film Time Of The Gypsies in 1989, and Berlin awarded him with the Silver Bear for Arizona dream in 1993. Top winner again in Cannes with the controversialUnderground (1995), the director returned to fantasy filmmaking with Black Cat, White Cat (1998) before heading again for the competition in Cannes in 2004 with Life Is a Miracle. Perhaps because of its very extravagant personal style, the critically-acclaimed movie unfortunately didn’t really reach out to the general audience. But the chaotic energy of Emir Kusturica’s filmmaking which has created his fame, could very well lead to a very surprising, almost explosing combination in this year’s Cannes jury.

(Translated from French)