Fresh off the plane to Romania, Oscar-winning director Danis Tanović sat down with me to talk about his latest film, My Late Summer, the project he's currently working on, the artist's role in the world, and his concerns about the direction this world is heading.
Q: Hello, Mr. Tanović, it’s a pleasure to see you! I’ll get straight to it. You’ve mentioned in past interviews that being a Bosnian director comes with certain expectations — people assume you’ll always make films about war. How did My Late Summer come to be, and what challenges did you encounter?
D.T.: I had already worked with Nikola [Kuprešanin] and Anja [Matković]. Anja, who’s also the lead actress, had the idea to write the script — they wrote it together and sent it to me. I read it and said: “This is interesting!” They asked if I’d like to direct it and I said yes. I worked a little on the script, got the funding, and we shot the film. It was very simple.
Q: Was there something personal that drew you to the project?
D.T.: The previous film I made was a comedy: Ten in Half (also known as Not So Friendly Neighborhood Affair), a Bosnian film. Everything was so gray, we had the pandemic… It was quite a bad time for me. I needed some fresh air. So I made Ten in Half, and then this film came along, and I kept going. But now I’m kind of returning to my usual themes.
Q: On that note, you’re writing a film about the war in Ukraine, right? Are you still drawn to stories about war?
D.T.: Yes. I just finished the script last night. It took me a year. It’s not about war per se — it’s more about the fact that I feel the world is heading in a very wrong direction. I think we need to rethink our world. Big dangers are coming, and people might not even be aware of them. We’re essentially witnessing the rise of fascism.
Q: Would you say My Late Summer raises such questions as well? If so, in what way?
D.T.: I think the film works through nostalgia. I miss those times. Back then, things mattered. I was just saying to someone how much I enjoy being in the Balkans now. When I was younger, I wanted to leave — go to France, England, Spain, America, Japan. Now I’m 56, and I find myself liking it here more and more. We’re not great, we’re far from perfect, but there are things I find lovely: families, neighbors, cousins, traditions, community. Community means everything. A person alone is nothing. That’s the West’s problem. We’re told that individualism is important — and it is. But collectivity, I believe, is far more important. I think all our big human ideas don’t defend the individual, but the collective — society.
Q: Speaking of the West and its lessons — you lived in Paris for ten years. What should we learn from the West?
D.T.: I lived in France, and there’s something there that we could learn: their relationship with culture, with the artist, and what the artist represents. Sometimes they put the artist on too high a pedestal, but God, it feels good to know that artists are appreciated for what they do! I think we still have to learn that — the importance of the artist in today’s world.
The film I’m working on now, in Ukraine, isn’t about money. I went there because I felt I had to — to see, to understand. Then I came back with a story, because I felt it was important to talk about these things.
When the war started in Bosnia, I was drawn to fiction, to feature films, to theatre. Then I started filming real life and realized how incredible it is. You just have to be there and point the camera. That’s why I made documentaries for so many years — the stories were unfolding right in front of your eyes. You just had to be present and capture them.
Q: Lastly, this year’s TIFF edition is focused on the future. Imagine, like an artificial intelligence, what the world will look like in, say, twenty-five years. What do you think?
D.T.: I’ll put it very simply: we will get what we deserve. That’s all. We can dream, be negative, be afraid, do one thing or another. But in the end, we’ll get what we deserve.
But I’ll tell you something. When I was a child, in 1976, I took a train. It was steam-powered, and my face was black with soot. I remember a man shoveling coal into the fire. Two years later, everything was electric and that man was gone. Does anyone really miss him? I don’t think so.
So sometimes, progress is a good thing. Sometimes we’re nostalgic because the world changes, because we get older, and it’s not the way it used to be. But change can be a very, very good thing. It depends on us.