An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker

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Danis Tanović was born in Zenica , (Bosnia & Herzegovina), in 1969. After qualifying as a civil engineer and a musician, he began studying film-directing at the Sarajevo Academy of Performing Arts. His studies were interrupted, however, by the outbreak of the Bosnian War. He accompanied the Bosnian army with his camera – the material that he and his colleagues produced has been seen in many films and news items about the Bosnian war. In 1994 he moved to Brussels to resume his film studies.

His feature debut, No Man‘s Land (2001), won over 40 awards, including Best Script at Cannes in 2001, and an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.

He made two more films about war and its consequences: Cirkus Columbia (2010) is set in the period just before the conflict reaches his native Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the English-language Triage (2009), starring Colin Farrell, deals with post-war trauma. In 2005, Tanović made the French-language film Hell (L´Enfer, 2005), from a script written by Krzysztof Piesiewicz and Krzysztof Kieślowski.

An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker is his latest film. It won the Jury Grand Prix Silver Bear at the 2013 Berlin Film Festival, where Nazif Mujić was also awarded a Silver Bear as Best Actor.

Filmography

★★★★

"Unexpectedly affecting...it is finally very moving"

Peter Bradshaw  The Guardian

"Danis Tanovic's heart-rending drama re-creates the plight of an impoverished Roma family"

Geoffrey Macnab  The Independent

★★★★★

"This is not just social realism writ large - it's a political parable about a society destroyed where the people pay the price of capitalist 'freedom' "

Jeff Sawtell The Morning Star

★★★★

‘The title of this docudrama… laced with bitter irony: that understated ‘episode’ describes a real-life national scandal’

‘A compelling  and compassionate affair. (It also makes you terribly grateful for the NHS.)’

Ali Catterall, TOTAL FILM

★★★★

”Tanovic at his best: sheer, concentrated film-making”

Tom Birchenough, The Arts Desk

★★★★

‘Scorches the conscience’  ★★★★

David Parkinson, EMPIRE (online)

"A raw and stirring piece of social realism that challenges dramatic conventions"

Christo Hall, LITRO

“The latest drama from award-winning Bosnian director Danis Tanović’s …exposing the institutional discrimination faced by Bosnia-Herzegovina's Roma minority…a harrowing personal ordeal that became a national scandal.”

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FESTIVAL

'Awarded the Grand Jury Prize at Berlin, An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker is a story of courage in the face of hardship and injustice.'

“Tanović fashions an unflinching exposé of the institutional discrimination faced by Bosnia- Herzegovina's Roma minority…his non-professional performers, meanwhile, lend the project a compelling authenticity…the knowledge that they are reliving their own nightmarish memories only bolsters the emotional potency of Tanović's pointed social critique.”

Dimitri Eipides, TIFF 2013

“An unashamedly angry picture, yet one that also celebrates the solidarity and courage of a oppressed minority in the face adversity”

Owen Van Spall, EYE FOR FILM

‘This astonishing and disturbing feature-length film, with it implacable dramatic arc, (…) is reminiscent of the best moments of neorealism, without the pathos’.
Marc Semo, Libération

'Winner of two major prizes at this year’s Berlinale, this is no less powerful than Tanović’s acclaimed (if very different) No Man’s Land.'  A shocking, admirably unsentimental indictment of how the poor – and, specifically, the Roma – are treated in today’s Europe...shot in a raw, documentary style.'

‘Breathtaking like a thriller, heartbraking without any pathos... his film is a jewel’.

Marie-Elisabeth Rouchy, LeNouvel Observateur

‘A true story filmed like a fit of anger by the Bosnian director Danis Tanovic.  An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker is an act of citizenship and the work of a filmmaker’.

“The fifth feature from Academy Award-winning director Danis Tanović.  A darkly naturalistic piece of social realism.”

Patrick Gamble, CINE-VUE

'Bosnian Oscar-winner Danis Tanović adapts a notorious news story into a starkly compelling docu-drama... a universal human story at heart with a coldly furious edge of political protest.'

Stephen Dalton, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Eric Kohn, Indiewire

'Rejecting any temptation to over-dramatize...Tanovic paints a desolate but sadly authentic portrait of stagnant poverty that doesn't even consider the option of rising up in protest.'

Dan Fainaru, Screen

Geoff Andrew, Sight and Sound

For film bookings please contact Colin Burch at Verve Pictures — [email protected]. Press resources are on the Press page.