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Branko Lustig
Lustig, right, at the LAMOTH 2nd Annual Dinner in 2009
Born	(1932-06-10) June 10, 1932 (age 92) Osijek, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now Croatia)
Occupation	Film producer
Years active	1955–present
Spouse	Mirjana Lustig (c. 1970–present)

Branko Lustig (born June 10, 1932) is a prominent Croatian film producer. He is the only Croatian person to have won two Academy Awards.

Early life

Lustig was born in Osijek, Croatia, (at that time Kingdom of Yugoslavia), to a Croatian Jewish family. His father, Mirko, was head-waiter at a Osijek Café Central, and his mother, Vilma, was a housewife. Lustig grandparents, unlike his parents, were religious and he regularly attended town Synagogue with them. During World War II, as a child he was imprisoned for two years in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Most members of his family perished in the death camps throughout Europe, including his grandmother who was killed in the gas chamber, while his father was killed in Čakovec by Hungarians on March 15, 1945. Lustig mother survived the Holocaust and was reunited with him after the war. On the day of the liberation Lustig weighted only 66 pounds.. Lustig credited his survival in Auschwitz to a German officer that, coincidentally, was from the same Osijek suburb and knew Lustig's father. He overheard Lustig crying in Croatian and asked him who his father was. Lustig stayed close to the Croat officer until the day of liberation when Lustig was reunited with his mother.

Movie career

Lustig began his film career in 1955 as an assistant director at Jadran Film, a Zagreb-based film production company. In 1956 he worked as a unit production manager on a World War II drama Don't Look Back, My Son (Ne okreći se sine), winner of three Golden Arena awards at the 1956 Pula Film Festival. In the 1980s Lustig worked on the miniseries The Winds of War (1983) and its sequel War and Remembrance (1988). He moved to the United States in 1988.

Lustig received his first Oscar in 1993 for the production of Schindler's List, a film based on the novel of Thomas Keneally (which is, in turn, based on the true-life story of a German manufacturer who saved hundreds of Jews during World War II). He received his second Oscar for the epic movie Gladiator about a struggle for power in Imperial Rome, in 2001. Other major Hollywood films that Lustig has worked on as a producer or executive producer include The Peacemaker (1997), Hannibal (2001), and Black Hawk Down (2001). In 2008, Lustig helped establish an independent production company Six Point Films to produce "meaningful, thought-provoking independent films".

Personal life

Lustig received the Order of Duke Trpimir by President Franjo Tuđman for his work on the film. In 2008 he became the first filmmaker ever and second in the field of arts (only one along with Vladimir Nazor) to be awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Zagreb.

The Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust honored Branko Lustig at his 2nd Annual Dinner on November 8, 2009 at the Beverly Hills Hotel for his long-time commitment to Holocaust education and commemoration.

Lustig celebrated his bar mitzvah on May 2, 2011 at Auschwitz, in front of barrack No. 24 a. He missed his rite of passage as a 13-year-old because at the time he was a prisoner in the very same barrack, having been deported from his Croatian hometown Osijek to the death camp when he was 10.

References

1. ^ "Hollywoodska večer za Branka Lustiga". Vjesnik (in Croatian). April 20, 2007. Retrieved 2008-07-10.
2. ^ Penić, Goran (July 10, 2008). "Oskarovac predavač na Akademiji". Jutarnji list (in Croatian). Retrieved 2008-07-10.
3. ^ "Moj put od logora do Hollywooda". Gloria (in Croatian). May 25, 2009. Retrieved 2010-12-21.
4. ^ "S Oscarovcem Lustigom na bar micvi u Auschwitzu: Mazel tov, Branko!". Jutarnji list (in Croatian). 2011-05-08. Retrieved 2011-05-08.
5. "U Hollywoodu održana večer posvećena Branku Lustigu". Jutarnji list (in Croatian). April 19, 2007. Retrieved 2008-07-10.
6. "Branko Lustig: Plakao sam Hrvatski (Crying in Croatian)", Nova TV Interview, October, 2010
7. Short biography

External links

• Branko Lustig at IMDb

Template:Persondata

• Croatian actors
• Croatian film actors
• Croatian film producers
• Croatian expatriates in the United States
• Croatian Jews
• Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award
• People from Osijek
• 1932 births
• Living people
• Auschwitz concentration camp survivors
• Bergen-Belsen concentration camp survivors
• Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust Award recipients