The first feature to be filmed with its entire dialogue in the Gypsy language, Romany.
Received 5 minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival.
Almost the entire cast is nonprofessional.
What interested Kusturica about subject matter of the film most was the connection he saw between gypsies and South American literature. For according to himself, Time of the Gypsies belongs entirely to the world of Garcia Marquez and other Latin American writers "who built their art on the irrationality and poverty of their people".
According to Emir Kusturica, making the film was the biggest adventure of his life.