Emir Kusturica's films are concerned with a universal humanism. While they come out of a specific part of the world?in which the political situation plays no small role in affecting his characters' lives?they are timeless stories in that they deal with basic human needs, wants, desires, feelings, and experiences.
Before making his first feature film, Man Is Not a Bird, Makavejev had developed his filmmaking skills and formulated his chief thematic and formal concerns by producing a number of 35mm experimental shorts and documentaries. His second feature, Love Affair, furthered Makavejev's reputation and situated him within a growing community of Eastern European filmmakers committed to exploring the potential of the film medium by opening it up to new subject matter and experimenting with non-conventional narrative forms.
