The famous Serbian director, Emir Kusturica, presented at the Belgrade Fair the book “Memories of Inmates” by Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro and Mauricio Rosencof that is about the days in prison of the former President of Uruguay, José Mujica.

Speaking at the stand of the Andrić Institute from Andrićgrad, which published this book, Kusturica said that Mujica is an atypical hero and the man who paid for his political ideas too much, because he was imprisoned for more than a decade.

He said that Western journalists make a mistake when call Mujica the poorest president in the world because they do not know his biography.

Kusturica says that Mujica realized that life is short to be spent in shopping malls, and it is more important to live, and that’s more important existence, not property.

“Its existence is a symbol of what we call the ancient hero, because there is no trouble, which he has not passed and turned into a spiritual, not material wealth,” said Kusturica.

He announced that in December would be probably finished the film about Mujica, so that the idea of Mujica’s world would get a new dimension.

Kusturica reiterated that Mujica is not poor, but rather a wealthy man who has a dog, the car “Beetle” and grows and sales marigolds because he realized that that is all he needs in his life.

“It is an interesting Mujica’s perception of life as it is not allowed to become a goods, but he remained the man and realized that time should not be wasted, but it should be lived,” said Kusturica.

Translator of the book from the Spanish language, Silvija Monros Stojaković, said that this book is a recollection of Mujica’s comrades and to talk about the time he spent imprisoned in the cellars barracks – 13 years, six months and nine days.

In the preface of this book says that the authors Huidobro and Rosencof recollect that they as hostages managed to preserve human dignity during the Uruguayan military dictatorship when they were placed in a cell barely bigger than a coffin, slept on the concrete floor, and when they were not given food and water drinking urine and eating flies, worms, paper and earth.