Danis Tanović is a Bosnian director, born in Zenica in 1969. Studied music, engineering and film there before war broke out in 1992. He left Sarajevo to study directing at L'Institut National Superieur des Arts du Spectacle et des Techniques de Diffusion (INSAS) in Brussels. No Man's Land, his first feature, won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film in 2002. A retrospective of his films No Man's Land, Hell, Triage, Circus Columbia and Baggage was included in the programme of the 16th Sofia International Film Festival. During the meeting with the audience after the screening of his film Baggage in the Cinema House, Danis Tanović said that he’s actually quite a joyful person and loves to laugh. But in the conversation he was quite serious and said that certain things make him quite pessimistic. Going back through his films, it is easy to spot the humor in all of them, but it usually serves to lighten up a very dark situation, and to help you through it. Perhaps, the more seriously you look towards the world, the darker you see it. And those who are most serious and go deepest, need humor the most, because how else can you escape the reality and the dark nuances of it!
You can read the interview with Danis Tanović for our festival’s website in the link.
Danis Tanović was awarded the Sofia Municipality award for outstanding achievements in world cinema in 2012.