Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra to give concert in Yerevan

PanARMENIAN.Net -
Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra will give a concert in Yerevan on March 5. The concert is organized by Avantgarde Folk Music Club and the Ministry of Culture of Armenia.



PanARMENIAN Photo with the assistance of Khachatur Almazyan is the exclusive photo-partner of the event organizers.



Emir Nemanja Kusturica (born 24 November 1954 in Sarajevo) is a Serbian filmmaker, actor and musician of Bosnian origin. Widely regarded as one of the most innovative filmmakers of his generation, Emir Kusturica twice won the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or. He is also a recipient of the FrenchOrdre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2001, Kusturica directed Super 8 Stories, a documentary road and concert movie about The No Smoking Orchestra, of which he is a band member.



Zabranjeno Pusenje (Bosnian for "No Smoking") was a Yugoslavian garage rock band from Sarajevo, closely associated with the New primitivism cultural movement and the radio and television satire show Top Lista Nadrealista. They were one of the most popular musical acts of the 1980s in Yugoslavia, selling hundreds of thousands of records.



The band was formed in 1981 in Sarajevo by a group of friends who worked on the early radio version of Top Lista Nadrealista. Contrary to the then-prevalent punk rock and new wave, Zabranjeno Pušenje created a distinctive garage rock sound with folk influences, often featuring innovative production and complex story-telling, sometimes even dark premonitions of war. They went on to record four albums and tour the country extensively, occasionally sparking controversy and even getting into trouble with authorities for their (usually mild and sympathetic) criticism of the socialist system, and the habit of making light of issues considered sensitive at the time.



After the band's popularity reached new heights in late 1980s, spurred on by the televised version of Top Lista Nadrealista, the Bosnian Warwhich followed saw the breakup of the band, with one offshoot continuing work in Belgrade initially as Zabranjeno Pusenje, later under the nameNo Smoking Orchestra, and the other in Zagreb, using the original name.