site.btaSerbian Tax Authorities Close Emir Kusturica’s Restaurant in Drvengrad

The tax administration in Uzice, West Serbia, has ordered the closure of the restaurant owned by world-renowned Serbian film director Emir Kusturica in the village of Drvengrad, local media reported on Friday. The ban will take effect on Saturday and has been imposed “due to identified irregularities in the restaurant’s operations,” according to an official statement from the tax office.

Commenting on the decision, Kusturica said: “This is a reward from [Serbian President] Aleksandar Vucic and [Serbian Finance Minister] Sinisa Mali for the best village in the world, at least by UNESCO standards.”

Drvengrad, located in a mountainous area near the Bosnian and Montenegrin borders, was built by Kusturica in 2004 as a filming location for his movie Life Is a Miracle. The village, replicating traditional Serbian architecture and lifestyle, has since become a popular tourist destination.

In recent months, the director has openly expressed support for anti-government protests across Serbia, including in Uzice, where demonstrators blocked a major highway in July, demanding early parliamentary elections.

Kusturica was born in 1954 in Sarajevo. Graduated in film directing at the prestigious Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in 1978. During his studies, he was awarded several times for his short movies including Guernica (1978), which took first prize at the Student's Film Festival in Karlovy Vary. After graduation, he directed several TV movies in his hometown, Sarajevo. In collaboration with the screenwriter Abdulah Sidran in 1981, he made the successful feature debut Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (1981) which won the Silver Lion for best first feature at the Venice Film Festival. Their subsequent work, human political drama When Father Was Away on Business (1985) unanimously won top prize at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival as well as FIPRESCI prize and was nominated for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar. In 1989 he won the Best Director award at Cannes for Time of the Gypsies (1988).