Jasmin Dizdar

Birthday: 8 June 1961, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Birth Name: Jasmin Dizdarevic

Height: 196 cm

Jasmin Dizdar is a British-Bosnian film director and screenwriter best known for his feature film Beautiful People (1999) and World War Two thriller Chosen (2016), staring Harvey Keitel. Both ironic and entirely sincere, Dizdar directs in a style that combines realism with a playful imagination. The screen hums with rapid cuts and inventive uses of subtext, performances and kinetics addressing the fundamental ridiculousness of war, prejudice, collective indifference and pleasure of being alive.Jasmin Dizdar was born and grew up in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, former Yugoslavia. As a child, he was an award winning short-story writer. During his adolescent years, he became prolific cinema-goer and amateur actor, before joining the film club in his hometown Zenica (Bosnia) where he made fifteen short films, winning himself eleven awards.After six years of short filmmaking in his home-town, Zenica, he began his film studies at the internationally acclaimed film school FAMU in Prague, Czechoslovakia. It's alumni included internationally renowned filmmakers such as; Milos Forman, Jirí Menzel, Emir Kusturica and Agnieszka Holland. Jasmin's two graduation films, After Silence (1987) and Our Sweet Homeland (1988), both won awards at the student film festivals and his dissertation about film director Milos Forman, "Audition for a Director", was published as a book in Prague in 1990. During his final years as a FAMU student, he was already living in London, writing his first screenplay "Mummy is Dead" in English.The BBC commissioned him to write the TV drama "Horseman", before commissioning him to write a radio play "Intimate Tragedy", soon after. Then the British Film Institute commissioned him to write the screenplay for his first feature film Beautiful People (1999), which was premiered at the 52nd Cannes Film Festival. Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport paid official visit to Cannes Film Festival world premier of Beautiful People (1999) where the film received a ten minute standing ovation, as well as being the only British film to win a top award at Cannes that year. Beautiful People (1999) was awarded the Best Film in the "Un Certain Regard" category, and became multi-award winning film which was distributed in almost every country in the world. Beautiful People (1999) earned Jasmin Dizdar international critical acclaim and the highest honor from Pulitzer Prize winning American film critic Roger Ebert who selected Beautiful People (1999) as number 71 in his The New York Times Guide to The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made.Following Beautiful People (1999), Jasmin wrote and directed a segment for French feature film Les Européens (2006) shot in Rome and Tunisia. The film is based on a burning social topic of refugees finding 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 plane 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 a car-roof of a middle class religious woman who starts to believe that the refugee who fell from the sky is a gift from God.Jasmin Dizdar's next feature film Chosen (2016) staring Harvey Keitel, Ana Ularu and Luke Mably, is a moving human drama of love, loss, 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 plays the lawyer in present day New York, USA. Hide

Everyone says things like, Michelangelo Antonioni, Robert Bresson and Andrei Tarkovsky were an influ Show more Everyone says things like, Michelangelo Antonioni, Robert Bresson and Andrei Tarkovsky were an influence, or I saw Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) and I knew I had to be a filmmaker,' or 'My mum is an actress, and I grew up in that kind of environment.' (...) I said, 'Look. All I need is that camera and that footage.' Hide

I much prefer to find those characteristics that seem to resist culture, history and education. In o Show more I much prefer to find those characteristics that seem to resist culture, history and education. In other words the common denominators, which unites us rather than separates us as human beings. Hide

I like it when the ordinary and the extraordinary go hand in hand. For me, laughter and tears are tw Show more I like it when the ordinary and the extraordinary go hand in hand. For me, laughter and tears are two sides of the same coin. Hide

[on his beginnings] I used to write stories at school and the teacher would read them out in class. Show more [on his beginnings] I used to write stories at school and the teacher would read them out in class. One day she put them in for a big competition and I won. I did a little book of cartoons in my room and then I was encouraged to make a film of it. The great thing about communism was that every town had to have a film club even if it was considered an empty good-for-nothing place. That's where me and my older friend began making our films. First an animation, then a documentary, and so on. My father, who has a notoriously dry sense of humor, refused to be impressed by all the prizes we won and told me I should be out getting into trouble on the street rather than living in a fantasy world in my room. Hide

When you enter a new culture, you're a bit like a teenager, you start learning again. You're extreme Show more When you enter a new culture, you're a bit like a teenager, you start learning again. You're extremely sensitive, and you absorb everything. Hide

I believe in imaginative literature and imaginative art because imaginative work can tell you far mo Show more I believe in imaginative literature and imaginative art because imaginative work can tell you far more than any factual work can do. Whether it is literature, theatre or cinema what it always boils down to is an engrossing story that weaves reality and fantasy into far bigger picture. Hide

Anyone who wants to make a film should learn their craft through the Russian silent classics, throug Show more Anyone who wants to make a film should learn their craft through the Russian silent classics, through Aleksandr Dovzhenko, Vsevolod Pudovkin and Sergei M. Eisenstein. This is where you learn how to capture ambiance and lyricism. Where you learn how to construct a film at the cutting table. Hide

[about late British folk singer Kirsty MacColl] This is a low-budget film, and we didn't have money Show more [about late British folk singer Kirsty MacColl] This is a low-budget film, and we didn't have money to pay her. But she said she'd really always wanted to sing that song "Sail Away" by Randy Newman, so she just came and set up the microphones and sung it for us. Hide

Playing with meanings is very 60s, I like that. Toying around is easier for an outsider like me. Playing with meanings is very 60s, I like that. Toying around is easier for an outsider like me.

[on Beautiful People (1999)] I wanted to make a film about people who have so much to say and they d Show more [on Beautiful People (1999)] I wanted to make a film about people who have so much to say and they don't know how to do it. I love to make stories and films where you actually combine things in a way that you usually wouldn't, that you see things slightly from a different perspective. Hide

Jasmin Dizdar's FILMOGRAPHY

as Director (1)

Chosen (2016)