Bosnia Tax Officials Threaten Kusturica's Mini-Town

Bosnia's Taxation Authority, UIO, said it had initiated an enforcement procedure for the repayment of 1.2 million Konvertible Marks [some 600,000 euro] from Andricgrad, the company owned mainly by Emir Kusturica, in a dispute over taxes.

UIO spokesman Ratko Kovacevic told BIRN that the movie maker's company owes this amount partly because it never obtained construction permits for the buildings in the mini-town.

Kovacevic added that much of this debt could be written off, if and when the company obtained the needed permits.

In the meantime, the UIO has started a process of enforced collection of funds from the company's six active bank accounts.

"Assessments are undergoing [on] the amount of money that could be taken away in order to settle the debt [incurred] on the basis of the VAT," Kovacevic noted.

"Requests have also been sent to all responsible institutions for control of movable and immovable property."

Andricgrad is 51 per cent owned by Kusturica and 49 per cent by the the municipality of Visegrad and the government of the Republika Srpska, the Serbian-led entity in Bosnia, which invested around 10 million euro in the project.

Construction started in June 2011 and the mini-town officially opened in June 2014 in a ceremony marking the centenary of the outbreak of the World War I.

The mini-town includes some 50 buildings built in medieval style out of stone and wood, in an attempt to recreate the scenery from the Nobel prize-winning book, The Bridge on the Drina, written by Ivo Andric.

Andricgrad has cobbled streets, stone gates and towers but also a cinema, a theatre, a marina, workshops, hotels, sports facilities, galleries and churches.

Kusturica planned to use the theme park as a set...