Danis Tanovic on War, Cinema, and His Love of Sarajevo: “I Know Every Stone of This City”
Bosnian filmmaker Danis Tanovi? makes movies all around the world. His 2020 crime thriller The Postcard Killings (2020), starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Famke Janssen, and Cush Jumbo, was shot in Sweden. Triage (2009), which stars Collin Ferrell as a war photographer, shot in Ireland and Spain. He filmed his latest, the comedic drama My Late Summer, in Croatia. But he keeps coming back to Sarajevo.
“It’s the place where I know everybody, where everybody knows me,” Tanovi? says. “I know every stone of this city.”
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Easily Bosnia’s greatest cinema export and to date its only Oscar winner (Tanovi?’s 2001 debut No Man’s Land, a powerful exploration of the absurdities of war, won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film), Tanovi? has carved out a unique career by refusing to repeat himself. L’Enfer (2005), his feature follow-up to No Man’s Land, is a family drama adapted from a script by the late Krzysztof Kie?lowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz. An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker (2013), which won two Silver Bears in Berlin, is a docu-drama about a poor Roma family scraping by collecting scrap metal. Death in Sarajevo (2016), is a taunt thriller set in the city’s most historic hotel. The Postcard Killings is an adaptation of a James Patterson/Liza Marklund bestseller.
“When I’m starting a new film, I try and challenge myself to work on a different subject,” he says. “Each film is different because I always pick different stories.”
What unites Tanovi?’s films is his sensibility as a filmmaker, a sensibility shaped during the Bosnia War, when he worked as a documentary director on the front lines. “Anybody who lives through war is affected for their whole life” he notes, somberly. But there is also humor running through all his work, and a keen eye for the absurd.
Tanovi? spoke to The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the world premiere of My Late Summer, which opens the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival on Friday, Aug. 16.
How would you describe your own personal connection to Sarajevo?
The simplest answer is it’s home. I’ve lived in many different places and countries. Each time I make a film, I go somewhere for six months or longer, but I always come back here. It’s the place where I know everybody. everybody knows me, and I know every stone of this city. People in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe, are really connected to the place where they grew up, we don’t move that often. Something that I’ve realized in America, is that people there move very easily, from one coast to another, from one city to another. Here, not so often. We have roots that are really strong. We’re very passionate about our home, which is both good and bad. I used to live in Paris for 10 years, and I wouldn’t mind if somebody parks the car in the wrong way, but here, if somebody parks the car in the wrong way, I get really upset.
Do you feel a similar connection to the festival in Sarajevo?
I never officially worked for the festival officially, but, I feel like the host. Over the years, I invited many, many directors and actors and friends to come and be here during the festival. Every year during the festival, I have a dinner party at my home so people can relax in a real home. We are trying to make it very homey. We Bosnians are known for being a very welcoming people. And I grew up with the festival. I was, there with Miro [Mirsad Purivatra], who started the festival, he worked at the same film academy where I was studying. I knew him before he started the festival. So it was somehow natural after I made No Man’s Land, to start connecting the Sarajevo Film Festival with French filmmakers, with American filmmakers, with English filmmakers. And the good thing is, whoever comes here wants to come back. If I were to describe it, I think the closest festival, in terms of feeling, is Telluride. It has that same small family feeling and is also about showing the best works of that year. Here we have a regional competition, but there are so many different sections where you can see everything that was made in the previous year, and that is important in the world of film.
From outside Bosnia, the perception of Sarajevo is still shaped by the Bosnian war and the siege of Sarajevo. And I don’t want to focus too much on that history of it, but it was when you become a filmmaker, working as a documentarian during the siege. How did that experience shape you as a filmmaker?
Well, there are a few different answers to your question. Yes, I know everybody sees us through that perspective. But the war finished almost 30 years ago. So we are trying to move away from but somehow they always expect us to talk about it. I think I moved away in my last few films, I kind of let go of the war experience, because life continued. My last few films don’t talk about war at all. The second part of the answer: Did it affect me, did it change me, is yes, of course. Anybody who lives through war is affected for their whole life? You can’t avoid it. It becomes part of you, and other people can feel it and see it. But I’ve moved on from the Bosnian War. Now I’m writing a screenplay set during the Ukrainian war. I was in Kyiv, last year, and there’s a story that I want to do there. The fact that I was in war affects me. I can’t pretend that I didn’t see what I saw. But there’s a third answer to your question, which is if you are a Bosnian and you want your film to be seen around the world, festivals often expect you to make some terrible drama about the war. As if you’re not allowed to make a romantic comedy or a thriller or a detective story.
After your first film, No Man’s Land, won the Oscar, did you feel typecast in that way?
After No Man’s Land, I had offers to come to Hollywood and make war films, but somehow, I always did what I felt I should do. I was offered to adapt a book I really loved, Triage. It was Anthony Minghella who approached me with the book. I read it and I said: ‘Look, I’ll write a screenplay, but I’m not really interested in making another war film.’ That was a long time ago, in 2003. I wrote a screenplay, but then I actually did shoot it, with Colin Farrell, 6-7 years later. After Anthony died I felt I should go back to that screenplay. But I usually do what I feel I should do. I never moved to Hollywood when I had the opportunity because, at that time, America really wasn’t interesting to me. After 2001/2002, America stopped being an interesting place for me. Most of the screenplays offered to me weren’t ones I wanted to do.
Your new film, which opens this year’s festival, is a long way from the war. It’s a lot lighter — almost a comedy.
It’s a comedy on the edges. It’s a film about growing up. What’s funny is the main character is 30 years old, but it’s a story of a woman who never grew up. About someone who had a bitter past, and she comes to this remote island when her father dies, to get a piece of his property. But in the end, she gets something completely different. And she grows up, in a way. So it is a comedy. A very simple film that is very complex at the same time. And I think it’s really beautiful. I’ve shot in Croatia for the first time. I had this director of photography [Milos Jacimovic], a young guy, and an amazing cinematographer. Croatia is beautiful, we have to work hard to not make the film look too beautiful, because anywhere you point the camera it’s stunning. Part of the trick was to no make a postcard, but to make a film. People who’ve seen it, have really enjoyed it. I’m not sure if it’s going to have a big international career, because these days, even in Bosnia, the films that you see in the cinema are Marvel or whatever superheros movies are out there. You rarely see art house movies. But in a way, I think things are also changing. When I speak to friends, out of all the American films of last year, the one people here always talk about is American Fiction, which is a small film, a smartly written, light comedy, which is also a serious film about the state of the world. I think people are hungry for this kind of cinema again.
How demanding is it to get your films financed, given how small Bosnia is?
Well you have to understand that filmmaking in Europe functions completely differently than in America. A Bosnian film that sells 50,000 tickets is a big hit. And the language, of course, is a barrier. So we are obliged to always have co-productions with different countries, which is hard. But on the other hand, it helps us make only good stories. Because why would somebody invest money if he doesn’t think it’s a great story? The bad side is that the whole Bosnian film budget for the year is probably 2 million Euros, which is ridiculous. But I’ve been lucky. In the last five years, I shot three films. I shot three series. It’s much easier in a big rich country like France or Germany or Spain, not to mention America. Luckily I speak a few languages, I can move from one territory to another. I can shoot in different countries. And that’s what I’ve been doing. I shoot one or two films here, then I go away and shoot somewhere else.
You have done a couple of English-language films, but not very many…
When you’re living in a faraway country, it’s hard to get your hands on really interesting projects. Funnily enough, the last film I made was number one on Netflix and in the last two weeks, suddenly, I received five screenplays. Producers kind of forget you until something reminds them again.
Tell me about your next project, the Ukrainian war film. What drew you to the story?
It’s always hard for me to explain. I’m not very theoretical. The story is set in Ukraine, where a murder happens on the front line. I started with this idea because I thought it was such an absurd thing to investigate a murder in a war zone. From there I developed it. I think it’s an important subject because out of this idea of investigating a murder, on the front line, I go through everything about the Ukrainian war and everything that’s happening right now. Ukraine looks much different than the Bosnian War, because the level of destruction is completely different and the front lines are different, but the human stories are the same. Because I lived through a war, I can see the same patterns. And I think I’ve found an interesting perspective to talk about what’s happening.
What is it that draws you to a certain subject for a film?
There has to be something in the story that I think I can do, that brings out my particular strengths as a director. With My Late Summer, we had such a small budget, it was really about finding solutions. It’s easier to be a director on a big-budget film because you have everything, but for your brain and for really showing your directing skills, the best is a small film where you don’t have enough money, and have to find creative solutions. We decided to shoot almost everything in My Late Summer in sequence and most of the scenes are done in one shot. Which meant I had to work with the actors in a different way, I had to think of the camera in a different way. I liked it because it made me work, it made my brain work in different ways. I like challenges.
But for me for any project, it starts and ends with the story. Everything we do is about stories. I hate that writers are not paid as they should be paid, because the basis of our entire industry is stories. You can have the best camera work, the best actors, but if you don’t have the story, it’s going to be boring. You can have shitty camera work with a good story and good actors and it can work. And if you have a good story, and you find a good way to shoot it, it’s gonna be great. Ten years ago, I shot a film which was supposed to be a documentary called An Episode in The Life of an Iron Picker. It was a true story and I went to this village, and I found the real people, and I suggested they play themselves. And we made kind of weird feature film which in which they played themselves going through the things that they lived through. I shot it for 17,000 euros, which is probably less than one day of catering on a big Hollywood film. And it won two Silver Bears and got on the shortlist for the Oscars.
When I’m starting a new film, I try and challenge myself to work on a different subject and then find what form best corresponds to the subject. If you watch my films, I think each one is different, because I always pick different stories. That’s why I never redid a war story after No Man’s Land, because I did one and I said what I had to say. This Ukrainian war film is going to be completely different from that or anything I’ve done before. It’s the story that gets me excited and then my job, the role of the director, is to find the best way to tell it.
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