Kusturica to make documentary about Uruguay's president

Montevideo, Aug 9 (IANS/EFE) Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica plans to make a documentary about the life of Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, authorities in the South American country said.

The project has been tentatively titled "The People's President" and will have a $3 million budget, Transport and Public Works Ministry officials told EFE.

Talks began nine months ago at the filmmaker's initiative and an agreement was reached last week in Belgium, where Kusturica met with advisors to Transport and Public Works Minister Enrique Pintado.

Funding for the project, which will use archive footage and planned interviews between the director and the leftist president, is to come from Uruguayan, Brazilian and Argentine investors.

Uruguayan weekly Busqueda said Thursday that Argentine production company K&S Films also would work on the project and was already believed to be compiling archive material for Kusturica.

The documentary is expected to premiere in December 2014, a month after Mujica's successor is elected.

Jose "Pepe" Mujica, 78, is known for his austere life style.

The former Tupamaru guerrilla, who spent several years in prison under Uruguay's 1973-85 military regime, currently lives on a modest farm on the outskirts of Montevideo with his wife, Sen. Lucia Topolansky.

The 58-year-old president donates nearly 90 percent of his roughly $12,000-per-month salary for the construction of housing for low-income families.

The Serbian director's films include "Maradona by Kusturica", a 2008 documentary about the Argentine soccer legend; the 2007 comedy "Promise Me This"; and the 1988 comedy/drama "Time of the Gypsies", for which he won the best-director prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

--IANS/EFE

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