Jasmin Dizdar is a British-Bosnian film director and screenwriter, renowned for his feature film Beautiful People (1999) and World War Two thriller Chosen (2016),starring Harvey Keitel. Dizdar's directing style combines realism with a playful imagination, blending irony and sincerity. His films often feature rapid cuts, inventive uses of subtext, and performances that address the absurdity of war, prejudice, and the human condition.
Born and raised in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dizdar was an award-winning short-story writer as a child. During his teenage years, he became an avid cinema-goer and amateur actor, eventually joining the film club in his hometown, where he made fifteen short films, winning eleven awards.
After six years of short filmmaking, Dizdar pursued his film studies at the prestigious FAMU film school in Prague, Czechoslovakia. His graduation films, After Silence (1987) and Our Sweet Homeland (1988),won awards at student film festivals, and his dissertation on film director Milos Forman was published as a book in Prague in 1990. During his final years at FAMU, Dizdar was already living in London, writing his first screenplay, "Mummy is Dead," in English.
The BBC commissioned Dizdar to write the TV drama "Horseman" and the radio play "Intimate Tragedy" before commissioning him to write the screenplay for his first feature film, Beautiful People (1999). The film premiered at the 52nd Cannes Film Festival, where it received a ten-minute standing ovation and won the Best Film in the "Un Certain Regard" category. Beautiful People (1999) earned international critical acclaim and became a multi-award-winning film, distributed in almost every country in the world.
Following Beautiful People (1999),Dizdar wrote and directed a segment for the French feature film Les Européens (2006),shot in Rome and Tunisia. The film explores the social issue of refugees finding creative ways to enter Europe. Dizdar's segment tells the story of an African refugee who attempts to smuggle himself into Europe by hiding in the landing gear of a passenger plane.
Dizdar's next feature film, Chosen (2016),starring Harvey Keitel, Ana Ularu, and Luke Mably, is a powerful drama of love, loss, courage, and survival against all odds. Set during World War II, the film tells the extraordinary story of a young lawyer who uses a clever strategy to fight the Nazis and save thousands of lives.
