[VIDEO] In Montpellier, at the end of the International Guitar Festival, we’re going to party with Goran Bregovic!

Do you have any news from Emir Kusturica? Every time Goran Bregovic makes his Balkan brass crackle in the corner, we can’t help but think of Emir Kusturica, and the reverse is also true, which means that at the slightest bit of filmed delirium from the director, we wonder what becomes of the composer. Impossible to cut it, even if it’s been more than twenty years since their roads separated. At the same time, it’s their fault!

A composer inseparable from the director with whom he triumphed at the end of the 80s

They come from the same city Sarajevo, and come from the same background, the same generation, the same punk culture. Goran Bregovic is a national rockstar at home with his group Bijelo Dugme founded in 1974 when Kusturica won the Golden Lion in Venice for his first film Do you remember Dolly Bell? in 1981 and the Palme d’or with his 2nd, Dad is on a business trip in 1985. The rest of the world really discovered them when they teamed up on what would turn out to be their unsurpassable masterpiece: The time of the gypsiesin 1988.

From then on, the cinephile composer Goran and the musician filmmaker Emir represented a kind of ideal twin couple: two gently lit and sincerely brilliant Slavic figures whose talent was never more explosive than augmented by the creative dynamite of the other. The time of the gypsies would it reach such a height of heartbreaking lyricism without the chant Erdelezi ? The song Kalasnikov would it have become synonymous with Yugoslav madness without the ramshackle images ofUnderground ? Inseparable… And yet…

Kusturica hardly makes films anymore but, phew, Bregovic continues to make music. His latest album, Three letters from Sarajevo which earned us to see him again at the International Guitar Festival, is even one of his best recordings. A concept album around the three religious cultures present in his hometown, crossing modes, techniques and tropes of classical, klezmer and oriental music (without ever forgetting Balkan rhythms). To signify, with pleasure, that we can all live together without getting in the way. Over the course of the disc, we came across well-known and loved faces: the Spanish singer Bebe, the Israeli rocker Asaf Avidan and the friend Rachid Taha.

In Montpellier, none will be present (and for good reason for the last, and regretted) but Goran has invited friends: in addition to his backfiring Orchestra of weddings and funerals, a string quartet as well as the Orthodox Choirs of Belgrade are expected. It promises to crackle with joy, like a final scene of fireworks!