My father was an atheist and he always described himself as a Serb. OK, maybe we were Muslim for 250 years, but we were orthodox before that and deep down we were always Serbs, religion cannot change that. We only became Muslims to survive the Turks.

I never wanted an independent Bosnia. I wanted Yugoslavia. That is my country.

Making movies is a dangerous job. Because you are always the one who stands at the center of the universe when making movies.

Yugoslavia was a kind of superpower. Great movies. Beautiful novels. Great rock-and-roll. We became a superpower in basketball. The problem is that people needed to identify more strongly with it after Tito and his awful, tricky way of leading the country.

Every time I'm shooting a movie I want to kill myself. Because I don't see the light in the end of the tunnel.

In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernize, not understanding that the western world is bipolar, with very good things and very bad things.

I will not cut my film because, because, because, because of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.