4 PROFILE

Emir Kusturica performing with , left and right; Kusturica at the 10th Kustendorf International Film and Music Festival, below; with actress Monica Bellucci in his new film , far right RGN EDRVC ZEKO TEODOROVIC DRAGAN WHERE THERE’S SMOKE set amid some 11,000ha, the village is a working The threat of musical model of what Kusturica calls ‘‘new communal- ism’’. It’s a political ideology he insists offers real anarchy won’t be far away freedom — as opposed to the restrictive liber- ties drip-fed by an anxious, corporate-con- when visionary musician trolled West. “We have investments. We are ecologically and filmmaker Emir and culturally protected. We pushed out a Brit- ish company who wanted to mine the nickel Kusturica and his band here and made this area national park,” he says. Out there are deer, lynx and bears; On the Milky take the stage in Adelaide, Road sees his character feeding wedges of or- ange to a bear from his mouth. “We are out of writes Jane Cornwell range from the new colonialists who would im- pose their bad infrastructure.” He has said he lost his city, Sarajevo, the capital of the Yugoslav republic of Bosnia- t’s the opening concert of the 10th Kusten- Herzegovina, in the war, and after stints in Paris dorf International Film and Music Festival and New York wanted somewhere to belong in , and founder-director Emir Kus- (he was last in Sarajevo in 1992). His decision to turica has sticks of gold confetti in his long live in and identify with Serbia was seen as grey fringe and an electric guitar strapped traitorous by many Bosnians, especially since Iacross his uncharacteristic black tuxedo. Five Kusturica, who is descended from a long line of

similarly besuited musicians on instruments in- PIKULA SLOBODAN Bosnian Muslims (and before that, Orthodox cluding fiddle, accordion and tuba are seated Christian Serbs), rarely speaks out against around him, performing some of the tunes they The 11-piece Serbian band will play like Kusturica the day after the concert, relax- Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader who have played on every Kusturica movie sound- WOMADelaide this month, but tonight the ing in the Library, a basement hangout whose ravaged his homeland. track since his acclaimed 1999 screwball com- focus is on Serbia. Serbian Minister of Culture walls are stocked with novels and reference Kusturica’s metaphor-packed, parable-like edy Black Cat, White Cat. Vladan Vukosavljevic•has already made a short books and bottles of Kustendorf’s organic wine. films suggest an acute awareness of the contra- The band’s name is the No Smoking Orches- speech talking up the festival’s policy of creative “I used my authority with the government to dictions of Yugoslavia’s troubled history. He has tra and it is fronted by the outspoken Kusturica, exchange between young directors and sea- bring roads, canals and electricity to the moun- always insisted he didn’t choose sides: “Just be- who is also a two-time Palme d’Or-winning in- soned moviemakers, along with its mission to tain. There was nothing when I first came ex- cause I believe in the identity and integrity of dependent filmmaker. And tonight the orches- highlight local traditions and geography. Beam- cept a haystack destroyed by [a storm].” my country doesn’t make [me] a xenophobe or a tra’s turbocharged gumbo of gypsy swing, ing at the minister’s elbow, 62-year-old Kusturi- Boasting a film school, an Orthodox church, nationalist,” he told Britain’s Daily Telegraph. Serbian rock, Slavic folk and Greek and Jewish ca — visionary, uncompromising, bullishly basketball courts (a tribute to the three world He once challenged ultranationalist Serbian wedding music — a sound labelled ‘‘unza unza’’ controversial — is a surprisingly avuncular championships won by the former Yugoslavia), politician Vojislav Seselj to a duel in Belgrade; — is being played straight and sedate, in collab- presence, wearing his national treasure status as a wellness centre with swimming pool and even Seselj refused, stating he would not be responsi- oration with a big band from the Serbian city of comfortably as he might a puffer jacket and an attendant ski slope, the hilltop retreat is open ble for the death of a naive artist. Novi Sad. The threat of musical anarchy, how- chunky boots, Kustendorf’s outfit of choice. to guests all year around. Fans from as far away “Do you see that line down there?” Kusturica ever, is never far away. There is no red carpet at this bijou week-long as Canada, Japan and Morocco make pilgrim- points towards the beautiful, snow-dusted ‘‘And God said, ‘Oh my God! What’s hap- wingding. Previous years have seen the likes of ages to Kustendorf (which is also called Drven- Mokra Gora valley spreading out below us. pened to the human being / Wake up crowd / Johnny Depp, Audrey Tautou and Monica Bel- grad or ‘‘wooden town’’) in the hope of meeting Somewhere amid the pine forests is the frontier Wake up from your boring dream,’’ run the lyr- lucci — who features alongside Kusturica in his their idol, one of the most celebrated film- of the Bosnian Serb portion of Bosnia. ics of Unza Unza Time, the No Smoking Orches- new film, On the Milky Road — mingling with makers in Europe and a man regarded by many “War is frequent in our area, which makes us tra’s frenetic 2000 hit; which, like most of its international auteurs and fresh-faced repre- as a sort of Serbian Tarantino. a very tragic nation. As Andric says in his im- English/Serbian repertoire, has a left-field, anti- sentatives from the “new authors” category, Kusturica has a pied-a-terre in the Serbian portant book, The Bridge on the Drina [which globalist aesthetic. whose short films vie for the festival’s main capital of Belgrade, though he rarely stays there. Kusturica is adapting for the screen], wars never A capacity audience in the Noam Chomsky prize, the Golden Egg. But when not making movies, overseeing the solve the problems that started them, but they Theatre in Kustendorf, the wooden village Kus- Helming this year’s festival Jury is the building of another village in the nearby Serbi- open new chapters and ask new questions that turica built on a mountainside in western Ser- award-winning Chinese novelist and screen- an Republic of Bosnia (Andricgrad, after Nobel we have to answer in a new conflict. bia, applauds warmly after each track. This isn’t writer Geling Yan, whose fragile beauty belies a prize-winning writer Ivo Andric), or touring the “Anyway, when I finished shooting Life is a your usual mile-a-minute NSO gig, in which long stint in the People’s Liberation Army, and world with the NSO (more of which in a mo- Miracle” — in which a Serbian engineer falls for bare-chested band members in cowboy hats who skilfully negotiates the village’s icy streets, ment), he and his wife Maja Mandic live in Kus- his Bosnian Muslim hostage — “we built a town pogo and crowd-surf, and sweaty fans mosh and variously named after Fellini, Bruce Lee and tendorf, in a two-storey house with a helipad, for the people, with no borders and no preju- storm the stage. ‘‘This is dance music that one tennis champ Novak Djokovic. single railing fence and wandering gaggle of dice. A protest against this idiocracy [sic] of the cannot resist because no two feet remain calm “We have a good place here, far away from snowy white geese. mass product, which is the sign and the symbol when it plays,’’ trumpets the band’s biography. symbols of the civilised world,” says the bear- Built for his 2004 film , and of all the world today.”

March 4-5, 2017 theaustralian.com.au/review AUSE01Z01AR - V1