Jasmin Dizdar (born 8 June 1961) is a British-Bosnian
film director
A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...
,
screenwriter
A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based.
...
and
author
An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states:
"''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
best known for his feature film ''
Beautiful People'' and his World War Two thriller ''
Chosen''. Jasmin Dizdar also published a book on cinema, which achieved a high volume of sales, with over 50,000 copies sold.
His distinctive filmmaking signature includes unflaggingly inventive uses of montage, sound and music where coincidences are often both funny and horrific, iconoclastic dry wit humor and imaginative rich storytelling. Dizdar’s kinetics awaken and reveal our fundamental need for love whilst drawing our attention to what separates us: language barriers, prejudice, dogmatism, and above all, a collective obtuseness and indifference towards one another.
Early life
Jasmin Dizdar was born and grew up in his Bosnian hometown of
Zenica
Zenica ( ; ; ) is a city in Bosnia and Herzegovina and an administrative and economic center of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Zenica-Doboj Canton. It is located in the Bosna (river), Bosna river valley, about north of Sarajevo. Th ...
, where his gift for creative writing was spotted early on by primary school teacher of literature. With her guidance and encouragement, he sent his short story “History Hour” to a regional competition and won his first award for the best short story.
When he was 12, Dizdar’s love affair with movies had begun, and he soon became a prolific cinema-goer. There were four theaters in Zenica, and Dizdar used an intricate system to get into them for free: he made facsimiles of movie tickets by scavenging for stubs in rubbish bins, then collecting the other halves from patrons as they came out of theaters. Gluing torn bits together and re-using them as fake cinema tickets enabled him to see the same film several times for free, particularly multiple showings of such Westerns as
Sergio Leone's ''
A Fistful of Dollars
''A Fistful of Dollars'' ( it, Per un pugno di dollari, lit=For a Fistful of Dollars titled on-screen as ''Fistful of Dollars'') is a 1964 Spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood in his first leading role, a ...
'', ''
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'' ( it, Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, literally "The good, the ugly, the bad") is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as "the Good", Lee Van Clee ...
'' and ''
Once Upon a Time in the West
''Once Upon a Time in the West'' ( , "Once upon a time (there was) the West") is a 1968 epic Spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone, who co-wrote it with Sergio Donati based on a story by Dario Argento, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Leone ...
''. Because Dizdar was so tall for his age (he is now 6 foot 6), he managed to see
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci (; 16 March 1941 – 26 November 2018) was an Italian film director and screenwriter with a career that spanned 50 years. Considered one of the greatest directors in Italian cinema, Bertolucci's work achieved international ...
's film ''
Last Tango in Paris
''Last Tango in Paris'' ( it, Ultimo tango a Parigi; french: Le Dernier Tango à Paris) is a 1972 erotic drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. The film stars Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider and Jean-Pierre Léaud, and portrays a recently w ...
'', despite its 18 rated certificate.
During his time at secondary school, he was an actor in the Bosnian theatre play ''Hanka'', based on the novel by
Isak Samokovlija
Isak Samokovlija (3 September 1889 – 15 January 1955) was a prominent Bosnian Jewish writer. By profession he was a physician. His stories describe the life of the Bosnian Sephardic Jews.
Biography
Samokovlija was born into a Sephardi Jewish ...
as well as being adapted for the 1955 film ''
Hanka'' directed by Yugoslav film director
Slavko Vorkapić
Slavoljub "Slavko" Vorkapić ( sr-Cyrl, Славољуб "Славко" Воркапић; March 17, 1894 – October 20, 1976), known in English as Slavko Vorkapich, was a Serbian-born Hollywood montagist, an independent cinematic artist, chair ...
. The play premiered in Zenica's Old National Theatre.
As a teenager Jasmin Dizdar joined a local film club where he wrote, edited and directed numerous short documentary, drama and experimental films and began to take interest in
film theory
Film theory is a set of scholarly approaches within the academic discipline of film or cinema studies that began in the 1920s by questioning the formal essential attributes of motion pictures; and that now provides conceptual frameworks for und ...
, particularly Russian
structuralist film theory. His last Bosnian film ''Butterfly Dance'' (featuring an ensemble cast from
Zenica
Zenica ( ; ; ) is a city in Bosnia and Herzegovina and an administrative and economic center of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Zenica-Doboj Canton. It is located in the Bosna (river), Bosna river valley, about north of Sarajevo. Th ...
's National Theatre) got him into the
,
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...
.
Career
![Jasmin Dizdar at the event of Beautiful People (1999)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Jasmin_Dizdar_at_the_event_of_Beautiful_People_%281999%29.JPG)
Jasmin Dizdar studied film directing at the
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
film school
FAMU. There he became known for his daring satirical humour often casting ordinary people, Czech actors and filmmakers who were not favoured with the
communist regime
A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Cominte ...
. Legendary Czech film director
Elmar Klos
Elmar Klos (26 January 1910 – 19 July 1993) was a Czech film director who collaborated for 17 years with his Slovak colleague Ján Kadár and with him won the 1965 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film
This is a list of categories of award ...
(
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
winner for the film ''
The Shop on Main Street
''The Shop on Main Street'' ( Czech/ Slovak: ''Obchod na korze''; in the UK ''The Shop on the High Street'') is a 1965 Czechoslovakian film about the Aryanization program during World War II in the Slovak State.
The film was written by Ladislav G ...
'') gave Grand Jury prize to Dizdar's
graduation
Graduation is the awarding of a diploma to a student by an educational institution. It may also refer to the ceremony that is associated with it. The date of the graduation ceremony is often called graduation day. The graduation ceremony is a ...
film ''After Silence''. This student film is preserved as a
national treasure
The idea of national treasure, like national epics and national anthems, is part of the language of romantic nationalism, which arose in the late 18th century and 19th centuries. Nationalism is an ideology that supports the nation as the funda ...
in the
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
* Czech, ...
national film archive.
During his film studies Jasmin Dizdar wrote, what is today regarded as daringly unique piece of film theory about his fellow FAMU alumni – double-Oscar-winning Czech-American film director
Miloš Forman
Jan Tomáš "Miloš" Forman (; ; 18 February 1932 – 13 April 2018) was a Czech and American film director, screenwriter, actor, and professor who rose to fame in his native Czechoslovakia before emigrating to the United States in 1968.
Forman ...
. This is regarded as a very rare type of analytical film theory written by a foreign-film student whilst studying in the totalitarian communist regime about an officially banned film director, who was often regarded as an “
enemy of the state
An enemy of the state is a person accused of certain crimes against the state such as treason, among other things. Describing individuals in this way is sometimes a manifestation of political repression. For example, a government may purport to m ...
”, during the time. His friendship with internationally acclaimed Czech
cinematographer
The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the photographing or recording of a film, television production, music video or other live action piece. The cinematographer is the ch ...
Miroslav Ondricek and Czech film critic Eva Zaoralova led to the publishing of Dizdar’s book about Forman, ''Audition for a Director''.
This book is remembered as a unique in-depth analysis of a legendary filmmaker. The book was published in a record number of fifty thousand copies.
After graduating from university with a Red Diploma (i.e. highest honours) Dizdar lived briefly in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
before settling in
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
where he wrote number of screenplays for
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...
and a radio play for
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
.
''
Beautiful People'' is an award-winning and critically acclaimed feature film written and directed by Jasmin Dizdar. Her Majesty's Principal
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, also referred to as the culture secretary, is a Secretary of State (United Kingdom), secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for strateg ...
paid official visit to
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
world premier of ''
Beautiful People'' where the film received a ten-minute standing ovation.
The film won an award for the best film in
Un Certain Regard
(, meaning 'a certain glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob.
The section presents 20 films w ...
category at the
1999 Cannes Film Festival,
an audience award "Gold Gryphon" at
Saint-Petersburg International
Festival of Festivals, and many other international awards. Jasmin Dizdar became the second Bosnian filmmaker (after
Emir Kusturica
Emir Kusturica ( sr-cyrl, Емир Кустурица; born 24 November 1954) is a Serbian film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and musician. He also has French citizenship.http://www.serbia.com/emir-kusturica-artist-builder-and-anti-glo ...
) to win a major award at the
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
and the first and only Bosnian filmmaker born and raised in
Zenica
Zenica ( ; ; ) is a city in Bosnia and Herzegovina and an administrative and economic center of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Zenica-Doboj Canton. It is located in the Bosna (river), Bosna river valley, about north of Sarajevo. Th ...
, to achieve such a prestige international recognition.
Based on its success at
Cannes
Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a communes of France, commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions I ...
, distributors in over 30 countries purchased the rights to ''
Beautiful People'', making it an international sensation. Dizdar is loath to label the film a comedy or anything else. He says that ''
Beautiful People'' embraces every emotion, which is why people all around the world have embraced it.
After ''
Beautiful People'' was screened for several weeks in the world’s capitals, alongside
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...
’s film
Eyes Wide Shut
''Eyes Wide Shut'' is a 1999 erotic mystery psychological drama film directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick. It is based on the 1926 novella '' Traumnovelle'' (''Dream Story'') by Arthur Schnitzler, transferring the story's set ...
,
Robert Altman’s
Cookie's Fortune
''Cookie's Fortune'' is a 1999 American black comedy film directed by Robert Altman and starring Glenn Close, Julianne Moore, Liv Tyler, Patricia Neal, Charles S. Dutton, and Chris O'Donnell. It follows a dysfunctional family in small-town Mi ...
and
Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero (; (often known simply as Almodóvar) born 25 September 1949) is a Spanish filmmaker. His films are marked by melodrama, irreverent humour, bold colour, glossy décor, quotations from popular culture, and complex narr ...
’s Oscar-winning
All About My Mother
''All About My Mother'' ( es, link=no, Todo sobre mi madre) is a 1999 comedy-drama film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, and starring Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña, Antonia San Juan, Penélope Cruz and Rosa Maria Sardà.
...
, Jasmin exclaimed during an interview with his friend, world-music renowned
BBC Radio London
BBC Radio London is the Local BBC Radio, BBC's local radio station serving Greater London and its surrounding areas. The station broadcasts across the area and beyond, on the 94.9 FM broadcasting, FM frequency, Digital Audio Broadcasting, DAB, ...
DJ,
Charlie Gillett
Charles Thomas Gillett (; 20 February 1942 – 17 March 2010) was a British radio presenter, musicologist, and writer, mainly on rock and roll and other forms of popular music. He was particularly noted for his influential book ''The Sound of t ...
: “Film directors like
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...
,
Robert Altman and
Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero (; (often known simply as Almodóvar) born 25 September 1949) is a Spanish filmmaker. His films are marked by melodrama, irreverent humour, bold colour, glossy décor, quotations from popular culture, and complex narr ...
standing shoulder to shoulder with me in London, New York, Paris and Tokyo makes my teenage dream come true. If a car were to hit me now, I’d die a happy man.”
''
Beautiful People'', like Jasmin Dizdar's other films, is a
satire
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...
. Jasmin Dizdar's satire could be described as a seraphic-smile
sardonicism
To be sardonic is to be disdainfully or cynically humorous, or scornfully mocking.
A form of wit or humour, being sardonic often involves expressing an uncomfortable truth in a clever and not necessarily malicious way, often with a degree of sk ...
which combines everyday and imaginative realism with a musical and playful irony.
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
film critic
A. O. Scott describes Jasmin Dizdar as a filmmaker: "At once sarcastic and entirely sincere, he directs with an extraordinary exuberance and self-confidence, intelligence and grace, with a style that combines realism with a playful, improvisatory sense of formal possibility. Jasmin Dizdar's camera hurtles through the scenes like a child in a toy store, grabbing at every detail as though it were a shiny, precious prize, acknowledging both the fundamental ridiculousness of the war and its inassimilable horror."
Following ''
Beautiful People'', Jasmin Dizdar wrote and directed a segment for the French feature film Les Europeens (2006) based on a burning social topic of refugees finding a various ingenious ways to enter Europe. Jasmin Dizdar's segment is about an African refugee who tries to smuggle himself into Europe by stowing away in the landing-gear bay of a passenger plan that departs from North Africa. When the landing-gear bay opens as the plane makes its descent, he tumbles out from a few thousand feet over Rome and falls on the car-roof of a middle-class religious woman who begins to believe that the refugee is a gift from God.
Jasmin Dizdar’s next feature film Chosen (2016) starring
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel ( ; born May 13, 1939) is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of morally ambiguous and "tough guy" characters. He first rose to prominence during the New Hollywood movement, and has held a long-running association with ...
,
Ana Ularu and
Luke Mably
Thomas Luke Mably is an English actor.
Early life
Mably was born in London, England. He attended the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama.
Career
Mably portrayed White in the thriller ''Exam'' under the direction of Stuart Hazeldine. He had ...
is a moving drama of love, courage and survival against all odds. Set during the Second World War, the film tells the extraordinary story of a young lawyer who uses a clever ploy to fight the Nazis to save thousands of lives.
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel ( ; born May 13, 1939) is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of morally ambiguous and "tough guy" characters. He first rose to prominence during the New Hollywood movement, and has held a long-running association with ...
plays the lawyer in present-day New York, USA.
Personal life
As a young adolescent Jasmin Dizdar discovered that
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
killed his paternal grandparents during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. A post-war orphanage changed his father's original surname from Dizdar to Dizdarević (most of former
Yugoslavs
Yugoslavs or Yugoslavians ( Bosnian and Croatian: ''Jugoslaveni'', Serbian and Macedonian ''Jugosloveni''/Југословени; sl, Jugoslovani) is an identity that was originally designed to refer to a united South Slavic people. It has ...
surnames end with "ić"). After thirty years of living under surname Dizdarević, he took back his grandfather’s original surname Dizdar.
Jasmin Dizdar currently lives in the UK, London, since 1989, and is a British citizen since 1993. He has a daughter who is also a filmmaker and visual artist.
Filmography
* ''Butterfly Dance'' (1984)
* ''Mr Slave'' (1985)
* ''Crucifixion'' (1986)
* ''Heroes Will Be Heroes'' (1987)
* ''After Silence'' (1988)
* ''Our Sweet Homeland'' (1989)
* ''
Beautiful People'' (1999)
* ''Les Europeens'' (2006)
* ''
Chosen'' (2016)
Other works
*''Horseman'' (BBC, 1992) - television drama
*''Intimate Tragedy'' (BBC, 1994) - radio drama
*Miloš Forman Audition for a Director
Bibliography
*Yosefa Loshitzky: Screening Strangers
*
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
: The Ultimute Guide to the Best 1000 Modern Movies
*Andrew Horton: Screenwriting for a Global Market
References
External links
*Jasmin Dizdar (
IMDb
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...
)
*Jasmin Dizdar
BritFilms*Profile: Jasmin Dizdar (4 pages)
*Just Beautiful - by a film critic for
Time magazine
''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Mar ...
Richard Schickel
Richard Warren Schickel (February 10, 1933 – February 18, 2017) was an American film historian, journalist, author, documentarian, and film and literary critic. He was a film critic for ''Time'' magazine from 1965–2010, and also w ...
br>
*Beautiful Film - by a
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
-winning American film critic
Roger Joseph Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
br>
*Reconnect what chaos rips apart - by a film critic for
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
A. O. Scottbr>
*To the street - a special in-depth analysis by a scholar
Lesley Smithbr>
*Jasmin Dizdar interview in Paris, Franc
*Beautiful People (French trailer
*Beautiful People (UK / USA Amazon trailer
*Beautiful People (USA trailer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dizdar, Jasmin
1961 births
Writers from Zenica
Living people
Academy of Performing Arts in Prague alumni
British screenwriters
British film directors
English-language film directors
Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina screenwriters
Bosnia and Herzegovina film directors