Emir Hadžihafizbegović

Emir Hadžihafizbegović — Biography

Emir Hadžihafizbegović was born on 20 August 1961 in Tuzla to Mustafa and Nizama; he has an older brother, Irfan. Having once aspired to be a sports reporter, he moved to Sarajevo, entered the Academy of Performing Arts in 1982, and graduated in 1986. He made his screen debut in a small role in Emir Kusturica's When Father Was Away on Business, then gained wider notice opposite Lepa Brena in Hajde da se volimo 2; the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Bosnian War then put his career on hold from 1992 onward. He returned to film with Remake in 2003 and has since taken mostly leading roles in more than forty films, alongside television sitcoms such as Lud, zbunjen, normalan and Konak kod Hilmije.

He has appeared in internationally awarded films including Fuse, Days and Hours, Grbavica, Armin and Quo Vadis, Aida?, and won Best Actor at the 71st Venice Film Festival for his performance in These Are the Rules. A member of the Party of Democratic Action since its founding, he served as Minister of Culture and Sports of Sarajevo Canton from 2007 to 2011 and sat on the party's presidency from 2019 to 2023; he obtained Croatian citizenship in 2013. He and his wife Aida have two children, Edin and Amra. In 2014 he pleaded guilty in a Croatian court over a fatal traffic accident he had caused and received a suspended prison sentence.