EL PEPE, A SUPREME LIFE

Ffilm about Uruguay’s last president, examines what makes José "Pepe" Mujica’s story like no other: a humble man who became his country’s president by sticking true to his beliefs and at the same time embracing change.

Emir Kusturica was born in 1954 in Sarajevo. He graduated in film directing from the prestigious Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague. He began his career of a feature length film director in 1981 with Do You Remember Dolly Bell? winning the Silver Lion in Venice for Best First Feature. All of his subsequent work proved to be huge successes: he received two Golden Palms in Cannes for his films When Father Was Away on Business and Underground. He presented himself to the American audience in 1993 with an English language film Arizona Dream, starring Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis and Faye Dunaway, which brought him Silver Bear in Berlin.

Emir Kusturica is the founder and director of Kustendorf International Film and Music Festival. 

For audiences less familiar with Mujica’s way of life and politics, El Pepe, A Life Supreme offers the chance to discover an extraordinary figure. For those who already know him, whether admirers or sceptics, it can come across as an uncritical celebration of his charisma. Kusturica makes no secret of his admiration, mixing his conversations with Mujica, diverse archive footage and even clips of Costa-Gavras’s State of Siege (…) to build his personal portrait of the politician, all with the nostalgic abandon of the tango that Mujica and his wife sing to at the end.

Elisabet Cabeza, Sight & Sound