Cannes

After Asghar Farhadi in 2012 and Thomas Vinterberg in 2013, the winner of the 2014 European Union  ‘Prix MEDIA’  is the Bosnian director Danis Tanović.

The ‘Prix MEDIA’ rewards a writer and producer for the film project with the best box-office potential submitted for development funding from Creative Europe's MEDIA programme.

Androulla Vassiliou, the European Commissioner responsible for education and culture, will award this prize to Danis Tanović on Saturday 17th May, at the Cannes Film Festival. The director shares the award with co-scriptwriter Predrag Kojovic and producer Amra Baksic Camo for What Are You Looking At?, a story he describes as being "about a city in an indefinitely prolonged post-war period, without heroes and with its values hijacked by corruption and crime".

Commissioner Vassiliou said: "Danis Tanović is one of the finest film-makers of his generation. His latest film project is exceptional, with a compelling script that exudes a powerful sense of cultural identity and dynamism. After the worldwide success of his masterpiece 'No Man's Land' and other acclaimed movies, it is clear that he has created the basis for another wonderful film which I'm sure will move hearts and minds in equal measure. We wish him and his team every success."

Danis Tanović said: In Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country of few but nonetheless good films, it is almost impossible to produce a film without access to various European initiatives and funds. Creative Europe and its MEDIA sub-programme are essential for our film industry. It took a lot of lobbying with the authorities for our country to join MEDIA. The support we have received as well as this award proves our reasoning was right.”

The film project – a brief synopsis

Sarajevo, not having any real heroes and no new values, has been steadily sinking into corruption and crime in the 20 years following the war. How is one to survive everyday life in a corrupted city that is slowly strangling its own citizens? Jasmin and Zlatko, ordinary Bosnian youngsters, find themselves in a fight with Keke, brother of Fahro, the main mobster in town.

Pushed into a corner, Jasmin calls up his older brother Đuro, an exiled war hero who comes back to town after 20 years to help his brother. What starts as a simple fight between boys soon becomes a war between former war heroes and newly established local mafia.

Danis Tanović: "For the first time in my life I have felt a need to do a story about the city I live in. Everything I love about it, everything I believe in is gradually falling apart before my very eyes. I do not believe that a revolution in the minds of my fellow citizens is possible, but I hope that this story will get them to start thinking."

Bosnian director Danis Tanović achieved worldwide success in 2001 with his first film No Man's Land which was selected for Cannes' official competition and received the Best Screenplay Award. More than 40 international awards, including the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, followed.

Set in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993, during the heaviest period of fighting, the bittersweet anti-war movie marked a complete renewal of the war satire genre. The director, who studied in Sarajevo and Brussels, is also a professor in film directing at the Academy of Performing Arts (Akademija Scenskih Umjetnosti) in Sarajevo. Other notable films written and directed by Tanović include 11'09"1 September 11 (2002), Triage (2009) and Cirkus Columbia (2010). In 2003 Tanović was a member of the jury at Cannes Film Festival.

In 2013, his latest film, An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker won the Grand Jury Prize and the Silver Bear at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival.