You know, in each segment of ex-Yugoslavia, multi-ethnic life is lost, except I think we somehow still have this in Serbia.
The most difficult part of making movies is to keep making them. Maybe, you could make the biggest hit in the world, but then the big problem is what to do next and how to maintain devoted to a certain instinct that I have about films.
Making movies is a dangerous job. Because you are always the one who stands at the center of the universe when making movies.
I am a living illustration of Bosnian mixing and converting. My grandparents lived in eastern Herzegovina. Very poor. The Turks came and brought Islam. There were three brothers in the family. One was Orthodox Christian. The other two took Islam to survive.
I've reached the 50th year of my life, and now every question related with life also includes thinking about death. When I leave, I want to leave to my offspring a clear idea about identity.
I am very impulsive and very stupid sometimes, but I am very clean.
I started moving towards Serbia when I felt my country, Yugoslavia, was being taken away from me. My feeling of nationality was not as strong as those around me who were attaching themselves to these absurd new entities.
I am not trying to say I'm a genius, but 'Underground' was the strongest attack there has been on Milosevic. It is about a man who locks his friends in a cellar for 40 years and convinces them that the war is still going on. He uses them, but they still think he is a great guy. And this was shown in every cinema in Serbia.
I am my best enemy.
If you say morality is just what you like, you lose the metaphysical level of what in the history of philosophy is called 'categorical imperative.'
I am somebody who respects Putin highly, but I'm not somebody who is against America.
My relationship with Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is very clear: respect. We met a couple of times; once I received a medal from him. I respect hugely how he brought Russia back from its knees.
I'm not anti-American. I was raised to love both sides.
When you make movies the way I do, you invest everything you have. And you do it like a crazy maniac.
I'm just a troublemaker.
When I was a student looking at Leonardo DaVinci and all those guys - Italian, Dutch, or whatever - it's incredible how each piece of the painting fits to the main theme that they want to express.
If the film is not emotional, then it operates on a superficial level.
My father was always saying we were Serbs, but I didn't pay much attention.
At a certain moment, Yugoslavia stopped being rational, and then you end up going to war.
I will always fight for peace. But, unfortunately, it is war that drives us forward. It is war that makes the major turns. It makes Wall Street function; it makes all the bastards in the Balkans function.
