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The court of the Afghan Durrani Empire in 1839.

Emir (pronounced [eˈmiːr], Arabic: أمير‎ ʾAmīr (Feminine: Emira, أميرة ʾAmīrah), meaning "commander", "general", or "prince"; also transliterated as Amir, Aamir or Ameer) is a title of high office, used throughout the Muslim world. Emirs are usually considered high-ranking Sheikhs, but in monarchic states the term is also used for Princes, with "Emirate" being analogous to a sovereign principality.

While Emir is a common transliteration in English and other languages, the form Amir is found for numerous compounds (e.g. admiral) and names. Transliteration differs depending on the sources consulted.

Origins[link]

Amir, meaning "chieftain" or "commander", is derived from the Arabic root '-m-r, "command". Originally simply meaning commander or leader, usually in reference to a group of people, it came to be used as a title for governors or rulers, usually in smaller states, and in modern Arabic is analogous to the English word "prince". The word entered English in 1593, from the French émir.^[1] It was one of the titles or names of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Princely, ministerial and noble titles[link]

Mohammed Alim Khan, Emir of Bukhara, taken in 1911 by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky.

• The monarchs of Qatar and Kuwait are currently titled Emirs.
• The caliphs first used the title Amir al-Muminin or "Commander of the Faithful", stressing their leadership over all Islam, especially in the military form of jihad; both this command and the title have been assumed by various other Muslim rulers, including Sultans and Emirs. For Shiite Muslims, they still give this title to the Caliph Ali as Amir al Muminin.
• The Abbasid (in theory still universal) Caliph Ar-Radi created the post of Amir al-Umara ("Amir of the Amirs") for his – in fact governing – Wazir (chief minister) Ibn Raik; the title was used in various Islamic monarchies; see below for military use
• In Lebanon, the ruling Emir formally used the style al-Amir al-Hakim since, specifying it was still a ruler's title. Note that the title was held by Christians as well.

Member of the court of the Emir of Kano, Nigeria. October 2006

• The word Emir is also used less formally for leaders in certain contexts. For example, the leader of a group of pilgrims to Mecca is called an Emir hadji, a title sometimes used by ruling princes (as a mark of Muslim piety) which is sometimes awarded in their name. Where an adjectival form is necessary, "Emiral" suffices.
• Amirzade, the son (hence the Persian patronymic suffix -zade) of a prince, hence the Persian princely title Mirza.
• The traditional rulers of the predominantly Muslim northern regions of Nigeria are known as Emirs, while the titular sovereign of their now defunct empire is formally styled as the Sultan of Sokoto, Amir-al-Muminin (or Sarkin Musulmi in the Hausa language).
• The temporal leader of the Yazidi people is known as an Emir or Prince.

Military ranks and titles[link]

Mughal Amir on Horseback, from the Large Clive Album

Entrance to the Amir's palace in Bukhara. From a photograph taken ca. 1912 by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.

From the start, Emir has been a military title, roughly meaning "general" or "commander."

The Western naval rank "admiral" comes from the Arabic naval title amir al-bahr, general at sea, which has been used for naval commanders and occasionally the Ministers of Marine.

In certain decimally-organized Muslim armies, Amir was an officer rank. For example, in Mughal India Amirs commanded 1000 horsemen (divided into ten units, each under a Sipah salar), ten of them under one Malik. In the imperial army of Qajar Persia:

• Amir-i-Nuyan,
• Amir Panj, "Commander of 5,000"
• Amir-i-Tuman, "Commander of 10,000"
• Amir ul-Umara, "Amir of Amirs" (cfr. supra) or 'Commander of Commanders'

In the former Kingdom of Afghanistan, Amir-i-Kabir was a title meaning "great prince" or "great commander."

Muhammad Amin Bughra, Nur Ahmad Jan Bughra, and Abdullah Bughra declared themselves Emirs of the First East Turkestan Republic.

Other uses[link]

• Amir-i-Il designates the head of an Il (tribe) in imperial Persia.

• In addition to being an Arabic name, Amir is also a common Muslim male name for both Arab and non-Arab Muslims, taken from Arabic just as the Western name Rex ("king") is borrowed from Latin while Amira is a common Muslim female name. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the female name Emira, often interpreted as "princess", is a derivative of the male name Emir.

See also[link]

• Murabitun

Specific emirates of note[link]

Emir Mejhem ibn Meheid and sons, 1920.

HRH Crown Prince Farouk, Amir of the Kingdom of Egypt and the Sudan, on ascension to the throne 1936 as HM King Farouk I.

• List of emirs of Harar
• List of emirs of Kuwait
• List of emirs of Qatar
• List of Emirs of Mosul
• Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

Islamic titles[link]

• Amir al-Muminin
• Bey
• Caliph
• Dai
• Dervish
• Imam
• Mahdi
• Mir, itself used in various compounds
• Mirza, literally "son of an Emir"
• Sheikh
• Sayyid
• Shah
• ShahenShah
• Sultan
• Umrao
• Vizier

Emirs in fiction[link]

• Abdul Abulbul Amir, both character and song
• Abul Qasim Qannadi, a character in Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Rose of the Prophet trilogy.
• Emir Wat Tambor, a character from Star Wars
• In an episode of Gargoyles called "Grief", the Emir of Egypt summoned Anubis (Tony Jay) to resurrect his dead son.
• In several of the Tintin books, Emir Ben Kalish Ezab makes an appearance along with his son Abdullah.
• The Emir; a fictional representation of Osama Bin Laden in the Tom Clancy books, The Teeth of the Tiger, Dead or Alive and Locked On.

Notes[link]

References[link]

• WorldStatesmen Religious Organisations - see also many present Muslim countries

Emir Nemanja Kusturica Емир Немања Кустурица
Kusturica at the Guadalajara Film Festival 2009.
Born	Emir Kusturica (1954-11-24) 24 November 1954 (age 57) Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (now Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Nationality	Serbian
Other names	Nemanja
Occupation	Film director and screenwriter
Years active	1978–present
Religion	Serbian Orthodoxy
Spouse	Maja Kusturica
Children	Stribor Kusturica Dunja Kusturica
Website
www.kustu.com

Emir Nemanja Kusturica (Serbian: Емир Немања Кустурица, Serbo-Croatian pronunciation: [ěmiːr nɛ̌maɲa kǔsturitsa]); born 24 November 1954 in Sarajevo) is a Serbian^[1] filmmaker, actor and musician, recognized for several internationally acclaimed feature films. He is a two-time winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes (for When Father Was Away on Business and Underground), as well as being a Commander of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.^[2][3]

Since the mid-2000s, Kusturica's primary residence is Drvengrad, a village in the Mokra Gora region of Serbia. He had portions of the historic village reconstructed for his film Life Is a Miracle.

Life and work[link]

Early life and works[link]

Born to Murat Kusturica, a journalist employed at the Sarajevo's Secretariate of Information, and Senka Numankadić, a court secretary,^[4] Emir grew up as the only child of a secular family in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, then a constituent republic within Yugoslavia.^[5]

Emir was something of a delinquent while growing up in Sarajevo, according to his own account.^[1] Through his father's friendship with the well-known director Hajrudin "Šiba" Krvavac, 17-year-old Emir got a small part in Krvavac's 1972 Walter Defends Sarajevo, a partisan film funded by the Yugoslav state.

After graduating from the Film Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) in 1978, Kusturica began directing made-for-TV television shorts in Yugoslavia. He made his feature film debut in 1981 with Do You Remember Dolly Bell?, which won the prestigious Silver Lion for Best First Work at that year's Venice Film Festival. From 1981 to 1988, he was a lecturer at the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo (Akademija Scenskih Umjetnosti) and art director of Open Stage Obala (Otvorena scena Obala).

His second feature film, When Father Was Away on Business (1985), earned a Palme d'Or at Cannes and five Yugoslav movie awards, as well as a nomination for an American Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Kusturica wrote the screenplays for both Do You Remember Dolly Bell? and When Father Was Away on Business in collaboration with Abdulah Sidran. In 1989, Kusturica earned more accolades for Time of the Gypsies, a film about Romani culture and the exploitation of their youth.

1990s[link]

Kusturica continued to make highly regarded films into the next decade, including his American debut, the absurdist comedy Arizona Dream (1993). He won the Palme d'Or for his black comedy epic, Underground (1995), based upon a scenario of Dušan Kovačević, a noted Serbian playwright.^[6] He also taught Film Directing at Columbia University's Graduate Film Division.

In 1998, he won the Venice Film Festival's Silver Lion for Best Direction for Black Cat, White Cat, a farcical comedy set in a Gypsy (Romany) settlement on the banks of the Danube. The music for the film was composed by the Belgrade-based band No Smoking Orchestra.

Recent life and work[link]

In 2001, Kusturica directed Super 8 Stories, a documentary road and concert movie about The No Smoking Orchestra, of which he is a band member. He was appointed President of the Jury of the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.

His film, Maradona, a documentary on Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona, was released in Italy in May 2007. It premiered in France during the Cannes Film Festival in 2008.

His film Promise Me This premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.^[7] During 2007, Kusturica prepared a punk opera, Times of the Gypsies. The premiere took place in June 2007, at the Opéra Bastille in Paris. The next month, Kusturica directed the music video to Manu Chao's single "Rainin In Paradize", from the latter's forthcoming album.

On 8 September 2007, Kusturica was appointed a UNICEF National Ambassador for Serbia, alongside Ana Ivanović, Jelena Janković and Aleksandar Đorđević.

Since January 2008, Kusturica annually organizes a private Küstendorf Film Festival. Its first installment was held at Drvengrad, a village built for his film Life Is a Miracle, from 14 to 21 January 2008.^[8]

His next film, Cool Water, is a comedy set against the background of a Middle East conflict. Filming started in November 2010 in Germany. It is the first time Emir Kusturica directed a film which he did not write.

At the 64th Cannes Film Festival, held 11–22 May 2011, Kusturica presided over the jury of the Un Certain Regard section of the festival's official selection. On 14 May, in Cannes, he was invested with the insignia of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, the highest decoration in France.^[9]

Acting[link]

Kusturica first performed in The Widow of St. Pierre (2000), a movie by director Patrice Leconte. In 2002, Emir Kusturica appeared as an electric guitar player/security specialist in The Good Thief, directed by Neil Jordan.

In the French movie L'affaire Farewell (2009), he played the role of Russian KGB agent Colonel Sergei Gregoriev, the central focus of a web of intrigue between warring governments and rival spy agencies.

Music[link]

Performing with The No Smoking Orchestra in March 2009

From 1986 until 1988, Kusturica played bass guitar in Zabranjeno Pušenje, a rock band from Sarajevo (SR Bosnia and Herzegovina).

Although Kusturica played a minor musical role in the band, he returned to the group following the Black Cat, White Cat film and the band's name changed to Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra. In 1999, the No Smoking Orchestra recorded a new album, Unza Unza Time, produced by the Universal record company, as well as a music video, directed by Emir Kusturica. The band has been touring internationally since 1999.

The musician and composer Goran Bregović has created music for three of Kusturica's films: Time of the Gypsies, Arizona Dream, which featured Iggy Pop; and Underground.

Writing[link]

Kusturica's autobiography, Smrt je neprovjerena glasina (Death is an Unverified Rumour), was published in October 2010 in Belgrade by Novosti AD. The launch took place on 26 October during Belgrade Book Fair and was attended by Nele Karajlić, Dušan Kovačević, Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić, Vojislav Koštunica.^[10][11][12] Released only in Serbia, Montenegro, and Republika Srpska, the book was initially printed in 20,000 copies that were quickly sold. Second printing in 32,000 copies was out in November and it too sold within weeks. On 8 December, the third printing in 40,000 copies was out^[13] and promoted a day later at Belgrade's Dom Sindikata.^[14] In February 2011, fourth printing with further 10,000 copies was out and soon the sale of 100,000th copy was announced.^[15]

Translations were published in Italy on 30 March 2011 under the title Dove sono in questa storia ("Where am I in this Story"),^[16] in France on 6 April 2011 as Où suis-je dans cette histoire ?,^[17] and in Germany in September 2011 as Der Tod ist ein unbestätigtes Gerücht.^[18]

Drvengrad and Kamengrad projects[link]

Drvengrad (meaning Wooden Town) is a traditional village that Kusturica built for his film Life Is a Miracle. It is located in the Zlatibor District near the city of Užice, two hundred kilometers southwest of Serbia's capital, Belgrade. It is located near Mokra Gora and Višegrad, best known for Yugoslav Ivo Andrić's Nobel-winning novel, The Bridge on the Drina.^[19] Since 2008, the village hosts the annual Küstendorf Film and Music Festival,^[20] which showcases films and music from all around the world. The festival is known for not having a red carpet as well as none of the popular Hollywood festival artifacts.

Kusturica started the construction project of Kamengrad (meaning Stone Town)also known as Andrićgrad), located in Višegrad, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina on 28 June 2011, which will be completed by 2014. ^[21] Kamengrad is located only several kilometers from Kusturica's first town Drvengrad, in Serbia. Kamengrad will be used as a filming location for the Emir's new film "Na Drini ćuprija", based on the book The Bridge on the Drina, by Nobel Prize for Literature laureate Ivo Andrić.

Controversy[link]

Work[link]

Kusturica and his work have provoked controversy at home and abroad.^[22] Underground, scripted by Dušan Kovačević, was partly financed by state-owned Yugoslav television. It recounted the history of Yugoslavia from World War II until the conflict in the 1990s. Some^[who?] Bosnian and French critics claimed the film contained pro-Serb propaganda.^[23][24]

French philosopher and writer Alain Finkielkraut, a supporter of the Croatian nationalist leader Franjo Tuđman,^[25] denounced the Cannes Film Festival's jury award, saying,

"In recognizing 'Underground', the Cannes jury thought it was honouring a creator with a thriving imagination. In fact, it has honoured a servile and flashy illustrator of criminal clichés. The Cannes jury highly praised a version of the most hackneyed and deceitful Serb propaganda. The devil himself could not have conceived so cruel an outrage against Bosnia, nor such a grotesque epilogue to Western incompetence and frivolity."^[24]

It was later revealed that Finkielkraut had not seen the film before writing his criticism.^{[26][27][28][29]} French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy made a film criticizing Underground.^[23]

In a discussion with Bernard-Henri Levy, the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek said,

"I hope we share another point, which is – to be brutal – hatred of [director] Emir Kusturica. Underground is one of the most horrible films that I've seen. What kind of Yugoslav society do you see in Kusturica's Underground? A society where people fornicate, drink, fight – a kind of eternal orgy."^[30]

The Sarajevo-born novelist Aleksandar Hemon, who emigrated to the United States before the war, said Underground downplayed Serbian atrocities by presenting "the Balkan war as a product of collective, innate, savage madness."^[31]

Politics[link]

Kusturica has been criticised for appearing to agree with Slobodan Milošević’s propaganda during the Bosnian War. Andrej Nikolaidis, a Montenegrin writer and columnist, wrote in the weekly Monitor:

"Considering he proclaimed his dead father a Serb, and himself, Emir, an Orthodox Christian, he easily chose his own in the Bosnian War. He recognized them in Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić. He wasn't there to fire cannon barrages, but whenever he could, with his artistic and media get-up he provided them an alibi for every killed Muslim who didn't want to admit that he was originally an 'Orthodox Christian'."^{[cite this quote]}

Kusturica sued Nikolaidis and the Monitor newspaper for civil damages at the Supreme Court of Montenegro. In the end, Nikolaidis was ordered to pay $6,490 to Kusturica for calling the famed director a "media star of Milosevic's war machinery".^[32] The judge ruled that the evidence was not credible enough.^[33] In the end Nikolaidis and the paper were fined 12,000 euros for breaking the code of journalism by calling Kusturica "stupid, ugly and corrupt" in the article.^[34]

Kusturica is also known as a vocal supporter of Russian president Putin. In 2012, he said that as a Russian, he would vote for Putin, while as a British or American, he would fight Putin.^[35] Kusturica also appeared at Putin's 3rd inauguration in May 2012.^[36]

2010 Antalya festival[link]

In October 2010 Kusturica withdrew from the jury of Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival after being publicly criticized and accused by Turkish director Semih Kaplanoğlu and Turkish minister of culture Ertuğrul Günay over his alleged remarks and opinions about the Bosnian War.^[37]

The criticism of Kusturica was started by an organization called the Turkish-Bosnian Cultural Federation as soon as Kusturica was announced as a jury member.^[38] Turkish media reported that Kusturica repeatedly downplayed the number of killed people and the rape of Muslim women during the war.^[37] It was not clear when Kusturica was supposed to have made those comments, but the daily Milliyet said Kusturica denied the allegations.^[37]

Public sentiment in Turkey was whipped up against Kusturica to the point that a couple of days after Kusturica left Turkey, there were news reports about a mob of Turkish youths in Antalya physically assaulting Swiss actor Michael Neuenschwander (in town to promote his movie 180° – Wenn deine Welt plötzlich Kopf steht) because they mistook him for Kusturica due to apparent physical resemblance between the two.^[39] Later, Neuenschwander's press agent said there was no physical assault and that Neuenschwander was verbally abused by a small group.^[40]

Kusturica later commented on the incident:

Personal[link]

Mayor of Guadalajara Alfonso Petersen presents Kusturica with the keys to the city at Telmex Auditorium in March 2009

On Đurđevdan (St. George's Day) in 2005, he was baptised into the Serbian Orthodox Church as Nemanja Kusturica (Немања Кустурица) in Savina monastery near Herceg Novi, Montenegro.^[42][43] To his critics who considered this the final betrayal of his Bosnian Muslim roots, he replied that:

Kusturica traces his family origin before the conversion to Islam, to the Babić family, precisely to a Kusturica that helped build the Arslanagić bridge in the 18th century, that hailed from Bileća (He took the surname Kusturica when Islamized).^[45]

At the 2007 parliamentary elections, he gave indirect support to Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica and his center-right Democratic Party of Serbia.^[46] In 2007, he also supported the Serbian campaign Solidarity - Kosovo is Serbia, a campaign against the unilateral separation of the Serbian province of Kosovo.^[47]

He is currently living in Drvengrad, Serbia, the village which he had built for his film Life Is a Miracle. Kusturica holds Serbian and French citizenships.^{[citation needed]}

Kusturica received the Order of St. Sava, First Class, for his selfless care and presentation of the Serbian nation in the world, on May 12, 2012.^[48]

Marriage and family[link]

Emir Kusturica is married to Maja Mandić, daughter of a "Bosnian Serb (Miloš Mandić) and a Slovene-Croat (Ljerka Kušec). His children are Stribor, 30, and Dunja, 24."^[5]

Filmography[link]

As director

• Guernica, 1978, short
• The Brides Are Coming (Nevjeste dolaze), 1978, TV film
• Buffet Titanic (Bife Titanik), 1979, TV film
• Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (Sjećaš li se Dolly Bell), 1981
• Nije čovjek ko ne umre, 1984, TV film
• When Father Was Away on Business (Otac na službenom putu), 1985
• Time of the Gypsies (Dom za vešanje), 1988
• Arizona Dream, 1993
• Underground (Podzemlje), 1995
• Black Cat, White Cat (Crna mačka, beli mačor), 1998
• Super 8 Stories, 2001, documentary
• Life Is a Miracle (Život je čudo), 2004
• Promise Me This (Zavet), 2007
• Maradona, 2008, documentary
• Tweaker's Delight, 2011 (pre-production)
• Cool Water, 2012 (pre-production)
• Wild Roses, Tender Roses, 2012 (pre-production)

As actor

• Walter Defends Sarajevo, 1972
• Underground (Podzemlje), 1995
• The Widow of Saint-Pierre, 2000
• The Good Thief, 2002
• Strawberries in the Supermarket, 2004
• L'affaire Farewell (Farewell), 2009
• Hermano (film), 2010
• Nicostratos le pélican (film), 2011
• Au bonheur des ogres (The Scapegoat), based on Daniel Pennac's 1985 novel, 2012
• 7 Days in Havana

Awards[link]

• 1st prize on Student's Film Festival in Karlovy Vary, (1978) for Guernica
• Golden Lion for "Best First Work" in Venice Film Festival, (1981) for Do You Remember Dolly Bell?
• Golden palm Cannes Film Festival, (1985) for When Father Was Away on Business
• FIPRESCI prize Cannes Film Festival, (1985) for When Father Was Away on Business
• Best Foreign Language Academy Award Nomination, (1985) for When Father Was Away on Business
• Best Director award at Cannes Film Festival, (1989) for Time of Gypsies^[49]
• Silver Bear – Special Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival, (1993) for Arizona Dream^[50]
• Golden Palm at Cannes Film Festival, (1995) for Underground^[51]
• Silver Plate of best documentary at Chicago International Film Festival, (2001) for Super 8 Stories
• Cinema Prize of the French Education System at Cannes Festival (2004) for Life is a Miracle
• Best European Union Film at César Awards, (2005) for Life is a Miracle
• Philippe Rotthier European Architecture Award, (2005) for Küstendorf village in Serbia
• On 10 February 2007, Kusturica received Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France's highest order in recognition of significant contribution to the arts.
• Philippe Rotthier European Architecture Award for his ethnic village project Küstendorf (also called Drvengrad – “wooden town”) on Mt. Zlatibor, Serbia, in 2005. The prize is awarded every three years by the Brussels Foundation for Architecture.
• In 2004, The Prix de l'Education nationale (National Education Prize) honored Emir Kusturica and his film Život je čudo (Life is a Miracle).
• On 8 April 2011, Kusturica was the first person ever to receive "Momo Kapor award", for his book Death is an Unverified Rumour
• In 2011, Kusturica won "Tipar award" for satire, awarded in the city of Pljevlja
• Order of St. Sava, Serbian Orthodox Church's highest decoration, on 12 May 2012.

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Emir Kusturica

• Emir Kusturica at the Internet Movie Database
• No Smoking Orchestra – Band official site
• Komuna Belgrade
• Indie Wire, Interview with Kusturica on Black Cat, White Cat
• RTS interview, 26 April 2006 (Serbian)
• Etno selo Nemanje Kusturice na Mećavniku, May, 2007 – www.ciode.ca (Serbian)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Emir Kusturica