• The next Küstendorf Film and Music Festival gets unveiled. For its third year, the festival will be held from 13 to 19 january 2010. This year, more than 300 films by young directors have been submitted. The officiel selection has 28 films, from 18 countries : Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Switzerland, UK, and USA. The jury will be led by Marjane Satrapi, famous Franco-Iranian cartoonist and filmmaker. A retrospective will be dedicated to Johnny Depp, guest star of the festival. All the details on the official website : kustendorf-filmfestival.org/2010

* On 7 december, Emir Kusturica received the Golden Star at the Marrakech Film Festival, Morocco, as an honour for all his career.

• On 10 december, in Courmayeur, Italy, at the “Noir in Festival”, it is for his role of spy-colonel in the Russian army in Farewell, that he received the best actor award.
• No Smoking Orchestra : good news, the tour continues in 2010, with a few new concerts planned :
  • 30/12/09 : Pecs (Hungary)
  • 14/02/10 : Rosario (Argentina)
  • 16/02/10 : Neuquén (Argentina)
  • 18/02/10 : Luna Park (Argentina)
  • 20/02/10 : Santiago (Chili)
• Meanwhile, happy New Year, and Merry Christmas to all of you !

• Emir Kusturica was in Turin last week-end, to present the long version of Underground, and to receive the “8 1/2” prize, for his career. Having a look at the different interviews he gave, let's make a status on his projects for the forthcoming years, which seem to be very busy :
  • Pancho Villa is more than ever taking shape : the script is finished, but the agenda of Johnny Depp pushes the start of the shooting to 2011. Also, to the great Italian director Gianni Amelio, Emir has proposed a role in his Pancho Villa. The casting continues.
  • But surprise, the first project Emir could start should be a road-movie in Palestinian Territory, called Cold Water. Emir would start shooting in April 2010. It is the story of palestinian striptease girl from Berlin, back to Middle East for the funerals of her father and the wedding of her brother. The few kilometers between Gaza and Ramallah will become for her the journey of her life. It looks like a weird and poetic road movie. Unless this project piles into The drawer next to the other abandoned projects ?
  • After the big project Pancho Villa, Emir still wants to make his project of film-oeéra on the Bridge on the Drina ; he confirmed it again recently.
  • Then, Verdiana ? It is another project on Giuseppe Verdi, on which Emir Kusturica has also talked to Italian press, but not before 2012.
  • Last, invited for the first time in years on a Sarajevo TV show, Emir Kusturica reconciled with Abdulah Sidran, the bosnian poet and scenarist. After Do you remember Dolly Bell ? and When father was away on business, both men start thinking again of a new collaboration. Abdulah Sidran has even a scenario he can only think of Emir Kusturica to direct, talking of deportations to Goli Otok, under the regime of Tito.
• No Smoking Orchestra : the tour should end with the concerts of decembre. Here are the last dates of the tour :
  • 05/12 : Kiev (Ukraine)
  • 19/12 : Paris, Zénith (France)

• Emir Kusturica has recently been into Caucasus. In Krasnodar, he was made a “Cossack”, after an initiation ceremony (drink rakia on a sword, kiss a horse and then ride it), which the director passed with success. Then, after a move in Ossetia, it was once more question that Emir Kusturica makes a documentary on the conflict between Georgia and the separatist region. But Emir Kusturica has just made clear into a newspaper that he is bounded, for the next four years, with the contract for the film Pancho Villa, which prevents him to make this documentary. It is thus very likely that this project stays in the drawer.
• Emir Kusturica has ordered a life-size statue of Johnny Depp, as in Pirates of the Caribbean. The actor reportedly liked the idea, and then he was asked for his exact body measurements. Emir : ”I laughed yesterday when I got the measurements of his body. If I was a tailor it would probably be normal for me, but I was really surprised when he sent me the dimensions of his head, forehead, shoulders, waist and other body parts. I can imagine how many women would like to know these dimensions.”. The statue shall be unveiled at next Küstendorf Film and Music Festival, next January, where a retrospective of Johnny Depp's films will take place, in his presence. The statue will be set on square Andreï Tarkovski. The sculptor will be Serbian artist Dragan Nikolic Baja.
• Emir Kusturica will receive on 21 January 2010 the “Alexis II” prize of the International Fund of Unity of Orthodox Peoples. by Kiril, patriarch of all Russias, in the Christ-Saviour Cathedral of Moscow. Emir Kusturica was granted this prize for “his incredible work in favour of the unity of orthodox peoples and for his promotion of Christian values in Social life”.
• For the 10th anniversary of the group, the Cultural Center of Serbia in Paris organises a photo exhibition of Dragan Teodorović “Zeko” on the No Smoking Orchestra. Opening of the exhibition will take place on 07/11, with Dr Dušan T. Bataković, ambassador of Serbia in France. Emir Kusturica : ”Zeko proposes here photos taken from the last ten years spent through the world with the No Smoking Orchestra, in the heart of all the greatest theatres open to rock music and to all sorts of music, including this one, which is very difficult to define… the music played by the “No Smoking Orchestra”. What is special in art and the documentary approach can be found into these photos. When you're in the position of shooting someone who is the source of an event, then the pictures can be great… You can here observe the faces in particular expressions, and, what is very well made under this rock & roll perspective, the capture of the light and the frame which reproduces a unique impression. Zeko is almost the best chronicler or rather the only chronicler of a long and beautiful friendship, as I like to say.”
• No Smoking Orchestra : the tour continues. It is also said that the the Zenith show in Paris, the No Smoking will be accompanied by the group “Vrelo”, as well as Milica Todorovic and Stevan Andjelkovic, the protagonists of the Opera "Time of the Gypsies". Here are the new dates of the tour :
  • 13/11 : La Havana, Cuba
  • 15/11 : Caracas, Venezuela
  • 29/11 : Banja Luka, Republika Srpska, Bosnia & Herzegovina
  • 15/12 : Toulouse, Le Phare à Tournefeuille (France)
  • 16/12 : Bordeaux, Espace Médoquine (France)
  • 19/12 : Paris, Zénith (France)