Emir Kusturica, all along his great career, started many projects he has given up after having worked on it, sometimes for a long time. Here are some of them…

In March 2010, during a stay in Yerevan, Emir Kusturica said he wanted to make a film on Armenia, in the future.

Source : panarmenian.net

In november 2009, Emir Kusturica announced to Italian press that he has a project to direct a road-movie in Palestinian Territory, called “Cool Water”. He would start shooting in April 2010. It would be the story of a Palestinian strip-teaser from Berlin, back to the Middle East for the funerals of his father and the wedding of his brother. The few kilometers between Gaza and Ramallah will become for him the journey of him life. It looks like a weird and poetic road-movie

Source : lastampa.it

In January 2010, Emir Kusturica confirms this projects and we learn that the script was written by Gabriel Bornstein, that Thierry Arbogast will be director of photography and Johnny Depp will co-produce.

In Variety, on 22/01/10, we learn more information on the plot : ”two Palestinian brothers who smuggle the dead body of their father from Jerusalem to Ramallah as they are pursued by Israeli police, Russian mobsters and a terrorist gang.”

In november 2009, Kusturica announced to Italian press that he wants to shoot in 2012 a film on Giuseppe Verdi, which would be called «Verdiana», the name of an imaginary city, like an Atlantide, and which recalls a film of Luis Buñuel. The place will be a theatre, la Fenice of Venise, invaded by a terrorist commando. We don't know much on this project, except, as says Kusturica, it will be a little surprise 'green from head to feet'.

Source : ilsecoloxix.it

End 2008, both Serbian & Russian press echoed a documentary project on Ossetia by Emir Kusturica. Indeed, during a recent move in Moscow, Emir Kusturica showed some interest in the Ossetia conflict, which opposes Georgia and Russia. The film would be based on Fatima Salkazanova's work, a journalist based in Paris. We can read, on this subject, the article of Serbian magazine : blic.rs (in English). Little concrete details have emerged, but EMir ensured willing to first direct his other project “Pancho Villa”.

In october 2009, Emir Kusturica went back in South Ossetia, and was warmly welcomed. He was even initiated as a Cossack through a ritual. We can read, on this subject, the article of Serbian magazine : blic.rs (in English).

But shortly after his journey in Osseita, Emir Kusturica made clear into a newspaper that he was bounded, for the next four years, with the contract for the film Pancho Villa, which prevented him to make this documentary. It is thus very likely that this project stays in the drawer.

The final point on this project was sealed in January 2010, when visiting Moscow, Emir Kusturica, interviewed by Russian media, confirmed he would not do this project. Source : news.az

The San Marinese Vladimir Gruska has announced in March 2008 to Italian press that he was going to produce an animation film on the history of his small republic. Emir Kusturica is said to have agreed for supervising the film direction. The other collaborators of this project would be Anders Thomas Jensen, oscarized Danish scenarist, Zoran Janjetov (Serbian cartoon author who has already collaborated with Alejandro Jodorowsky) and Rajko Milošević-Gera (drawer and animator at Warners Bross). It will be the first film produced by the republic of San-Marino.

Emir has declared in june 2007, in an interview in “Russian Gazzeta”, that he would love to make a film on Pancho Villa, the famous gangster that became general during the mexican revolution. He explained that he admired his fight for freedom and that it would fit his cinematographic style…

In february 2009, French producers Fidélité have announced the launching of the work for the next film of Emir Kusturica on Mexicain revolutionary. The title of the film would be “The Seven friends of Pancho Villa and the woman with six fingers”. Gordan Mihić and Emir Kusturica are currently working on the script, based on a novel of James Carlos Blake. The book explores the life of Pancho Villa from the point of view of his lieutenant Rodolfo Fierro, between fiction and real events. It tells the big facts of the Mexican revolution, while taking some distance with his engagement sometimes cruel. Javier Bardem is still candidate number one for the lead role. The shooting was supposed to start by the end of 2009, or beginning of 2010.

But then, some things have changed.

Here are the known information about this project :

• The title was meant to be initially “Mexico”, then “Pancho Villa”, “The Seven friends of Pancho Villa and the woman with six fingers” ; now it is supposed to be “Wild Roses, Tender Roses”
• The shooting was several times delayed. It is supposed to take place in Mexico, in Spain and in Serbia. It is announced to start on 15 February 2011
• Emir Kusturica first thought of “his friend” Guillermo Arriaga (scenarist of “Babel”, “Amores perros”, “21 grams” and “the three burrials of Melquiades Estrada”) to write the scenario, but then asked Gordan Mihić.
• Until june 2009, rumours said Javier Bardem would be the main actor. But in July 2009, Emir went to Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis house in St Tropez on the French Riviera, and he decided Johnny to take the lead role. Salma Hayek is also supposed to take a part in it.
• The film will be entirely shot in Spanish language

In Juanuary 2010, Johnny Depp says : ”I would like the shooting to start as soon as possible, because I am sacred that Emir will change his mind and fire me (laughing). When he told me that he would like me to play the role of Pancho Villa, I thought that the better choice for that role would be some Mexican actor, because Villa is a national hero. However, knowing Emir, I am sure that he has something on his mind, some vision. I visited the big studio made by Kusturica in Mecavnik where interior shooting will take place, I read the script and I can’t wait to start shooting. I have great expectations and I will try not to disappoint my fans.” Source : blic.rs

During the rehearsals of the Opera "Time of the Gypsies" in Paris, in may 2007, Emir Kusturica has declared to journalists that he loved this kind of directing, and that he would set one day anotherone of his films Black Cat, White Cat in opera, but in New York…

When he was working on the adaptation of the Opera "Time of the Gypsies", Gordan Mihić declared to Blic (Serbian newspaper) that he was also working with Emir Kusturica to start the adaptation of the novel “Autumn of the Patriarch” by Cuban writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Emir Kusturica had even personnaly been to Cuba on 28 November 2005 to meet Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and to talk about his vision of the book.

He never mentionned this project anymore.

During a masterclass at a FNAC in Paris in may 2004, Emir promised one of his next films will be shot in France, in french. He even already has a scenario : the story would take place in the Middle-Age (a time - these are his own words - he's familiar with), and it's about a man and a forest.

We haven't heard from this project anymore.

Edouard Limonov is a Franco-Russian political writer who participated in the dissident movements of the last years of SSSR. This led to his exile to the USA, then to France where he collaborated to communist (L'Humanité) and nationalist (Le Choc du mois) newspapers. Back in Russia, the writer created under the direction of Alexandre Douguine the national-bolchevic party (PNB). After he ceased this association, he had a provocative bahaviour which led him to make four years in jail. Limonov was freed under the pression of an international campaign.

Emir had not yet finished filming of Life is a miracle that an article published in Serb magazine NIN spoke about his next project : a musical film on the life of Eduard Limonov, controversial Russian writer, author of best-sellers written from jail.

We haven't heard from this project anymore.

Several times, The bridge over the Drina, the masterpiece of Ivo Andrić has worked in the imagination of Emir Kusturica. Thus, in 1985 already, after his first victory in Cannes for When father was away on business, then again after Arizona Dream, he wished to tell the story of his country through this cult book.

The adaptation work was made during an long time, because Emir Kusturica has talked about it at several occasions to journalists with much enthousiasm.

”It will be the biggest yugoslav film ever made” was he saying in 1993.

Unfortunately, he had to renounce. The story happened to be to complex to adapt. Too many characters, story too widely spread in time, and most of all : no producer accepting such a big project in Serbian language…

But in February 2009, Emir Kusturica held a press conference in Küstendorf with Serbian minister of Culture Nebojsa Bradic, to announce his intention to realize an adaptation as a “film-opéra” of the monument of Yugoslav literature : “A bridge on the Drina” (Na Drini cuprija), by Literature Nobel Prize Ivo Andrić. We remember that Emir wants to make the adaptation of this classic since a long time. For this project, he wants to use a mix technique with real shootings in Višegrad (Bosnia, a few kilometers from Küstendorf) and live show. But first things first, the libretto and the music have to be written by a whole team, including Emir Kusturica, Nele Karajlic and the No Smoking Orchestra. International coproduction, the projet wishes also the collaboration of Turkey, due to the cultural legacy of Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. Emir Kusturica hopes this project can be achieved in 2011 for the 50th jubilee Ivo Andrić's Nobel Prize attribution. About this project, the minister declares ”this novel encloses our present, past and, I am afraid, future. That is our Old Testament. I know that Ivo Andric opposed ideas of putting his works into other genres due to some bad experiences, but he was not quite exclusive. With good preparation we can overcome potential obstacles”

He confirmed this information in March 2009 in an interview.

In november 2009, after having performed in Banja Luka with the No Smoking Orchestra, Emir Kusturica met the Republika Srpska authorities ; they then declared they would help financing this project, in order to make from the area Višegrad-Küstendorf a major touristic attraction. Source : rtv.rs

After Super 8 Stories, one of the first projects Emir Kusturica talked about was The Nose, the amazing story of a theatre actor who, just before entering on the stage for the character of Cyrano de Bergerac, has his nose broken by Russian mafiosi. Emir has often talked of this project with much enthusiasm before finally making Life is a miracle. In an interview of 2001, Emir Kusturica says even it's already one year and a half he's working on this project, that Dušan Kovačević has written a satisfying script, and that Miki Manojlović is already booked in the casting…

We haven't heard from this project anymore.

After his role in The widow of Saint-Pierre, Emir Kusturica has several times talked about making a film with Daniel Auteuil which would be called The king of Sweden a sunday afternoon on his green bicycle. This project was given up when Black Cat, White Cat, which should have initially been a short documentary about the gypsy musician of Underground, transformed into a real film.

Just after Time of the Gypsies, when Emir Kusturica arrived in the USA, he wished to adapt the famous Dostoïevski book Crime and punishment transposing the story to the current times in Brighton Beach, near New York, an area where many Russian migrants live. Johnny Depp was supposed to be in the casting : Raskolnikov would have been a bass player in a rock band. But Emir finally decided to shoot Arizona Dream in the USA. Even when he started the work on Underground, he still said this project was his real big projcet that he would do after the “parenthesis” Underground.

Much adaptation work was made on this film, at such a point that Emir found it symptomatic of his numerous aborted projects. After The good thief, he said he would like to make a film called Why I didn't shoot crime and punishment, Nick Nolte was supposed to be the leading role…

We haven't heard from this project anymore.

For a long time, rumours circulated on the adaptation of The White Hotel, a psychoanalysis history. Many names of great actors had even been quoted (next to Johnny Depp was to play Nicole Kidman, Juliette Binoche, Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett, Frances McDormand, Holly Hunter, Lena Olin, or even Irène Jacob). Dušan Kovačević had made an adaptation of Denis Potter's scenario transposing the action in Berlin instead of Viena and replacing Freud by a young psychanalist. Giuseppe Rotunno, Fellini's camera operator should have even been photography director. Anyway, the project had to face difficult financial problems, and it is today definitively given up by Kusturica.

Before Kusturica, the project had been proposed to Terence Mallick and David Lynch who had refused, and after him, it was proposed to David Cronenberg and Simon Monjack, but the film is still not made.

The author, DH Thomas, recently wrote a book on the incredible misadventures of this adaptation project. About the Kusturica episode, he says : ”I once again had a vision: of a white hotel springing up by magic beside a Serbian lake, with snowy mountains behind, and fir trees… Then, in March 1999, Nato forces bombed Serbia. Kusturica’s son almost died when a bomb fell just 40 yards from him in Belgrade. Exit Emir, understandably enraged with the West, especially America. ”.

More excerpts of the book can be read on times.co.uk

In december 2009, with the sudden death of actress Brittany Murphy, also companion of director Simon Monjack, we start to talk of the “White Hotel curse”. On this topic, we can read the article on vanityfair.com

The Doukhobors is the name of a Christian religious movement, of slavic origins, settled in Canada.

Doukhobor means “spirit fighter”. The Doukhbobors rejected men's governement, the Russian orthodox priests, the icons, all the ecclesiastic rituals, the Bible except for the Gospel and the divine character of Jesus. They were real pacifists, which caused for religious and political reasons a strong repression from the Tsar and the Orthodox Church, enduring tortures, exile and freedom loss. At the end of the XIXth century, the Doukhobors left Russia massively. They chose Canada for the isolation andthe peaceful atmosphere. This country was ready to welcome them and they settled there in 1899.

After the Golden Palm of When father was away on business, Emir Kusturica has much worked on the Doukhobors, and he even went on the shores of the Saint Laurent to meet their children. He talked several times of this project, but he gave up to do Time of the Gypsies.

After Do you remember Dolly Bell ?, Emir Kusturica co-wrote a script called The thieving magpie strategy. It's fainlly Zlatko Lavanic (assistant director on When father was away on business) who did it in 1987, with the actor Davor Dujmović.

Since serval year, Emir Kusturica has started to write a book : The diary of a political idiot, which would talk in 12 chapiters children souvenirs, comic or absurd clichés of his own life, tragic funny moments of his life. The last news said he had finished to write it, but yet, no release is announced.

Student in Prague in 1977, Emir Kusturica wrote a script named The house of the dead-end street (Kuca u slijepoj ulici), but never directed it.