His 2001 No Man’s Land, which won an Oscar and the most awards ever in film history, launched 38-year-old Bosnian director Danis Tanovic to the big league of great cinema.

Tanovic did it again with his second feature L'Enfer (Hell) completed in 2005. Part of a trilogy, L'Enfer, which explores the complex interplay of relationships between three sisters, has also been graded “exquisite” by the critics.

Among the Bosnian director’s new projects are a feature film with Collin Farrel and a project on war criminals. The filmmaker is also exploring the idea of shooting a film in India developed on an idea all his own.  He spoke to Deccan Herald’s Devika Sequeira on the sidelines of the film festival in Panaji, Goa. Excerpts:

Deccan Herald: Was your award-winning film No Man's Land, though satirical, a way to come to terms with the war and violence in your country?

Tanovic: Definitely... the idea behind making No Man’s Land was to try and make a film that was anti-war basically, not only for my country. And it worked. It became what it became because it had a universal subject — why do we fight.

DH: Was it the Oscar it won in 2001 that gave your film such a wide reach of audience?

Tanovic: That happened before. The movie was shown at the Cannes Film Festival where it won a prize, that was the first film festival it was shown in, so when it came to the Oscars it had already won 60 prizes in different festival. It was the most awarded film in history. So when the Oscar came, it was at the end of a very successful festival story. I remember that morning in Cannes, nobody knew about me or about No Man's Land, and three days later it was all over.

DH: Are awards a happy experience for a filmmaker, or do they not count for much?

Tanovic: Of course, it’s a happy experience, for someone who makes movies to get it to the public and then the public enjoys it and talks about it, it’s a pleasure. You’re not making a movie for yourself. Even when you start the process you’re talking about things that matter to you, but then you’re talking to other people as well.

DH: What other film projects are you working on at the moment?

Tanovic: I should be fast shooting a movie with Collin Farrel in the main role in April somewhere in Ireland. It’s an adaptation of a book called Triage by Scott Anderson. Then there is a Bosnian movie I’m working on that will come through hopefully; I have a project with Kathleen Kennedy, she’s an American producer, it’s a Bosnian-American story about war criminals.

DH: Do you think festivals like this one give the general public a far wider perspective of cinema?

Tanovic: The whole idea behind a festival is to promote cinema, of a different kind, and cinema that most of the time you don’t see around because the movie houses have been taken by Bollywood or by American movies. It’s a great window to the world and it’s educational in a sense, because people come to see movies in festivals and maybe they’ll go to a video club and rent a film they wouldn’t rent otherwise.

DH: Do you subscribe to the increasingly popular notion that the world has become flat, and it is so globalised today that there are few cultural differences and little mystery left to explore?

Tanovic: Mystery will always exist, I think. First of all, the world became a flat place for people who have the right passport and money to follow. It’s always been like that for the rich and the elite.

But there is still mystery in the world, you don’t have to go far to find it. My own country is a mystery, I think. Mystery is in you, you either have it in you to see it, or you don’t. There are people who will not see anything in the most magical of things. I would agree that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

DH: You’re a director and scriptwriter. How does the process work for you? You do the script first or do you tailor it to your cinematic view of the idea?

Tanovic: It depends, there are no rules to that. Sometimes you start writing the story and then you rewrite it, and sometimes you have the whole story. There are no rules, that’s what’s great about making movies, each time you start from zero.