Bosnian actor Nazif Mujic, who won the Silver Bear for best actor at the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival, has died. He was 48, according to AFP.
“The Berlin International Film Festival was deeply saddened to hear of the death of Nazif Mujic, who passed away on February 18, 2018,” the festival said. It’s not clear how he died.
Mujic was celebrated in 2013 in Berlin when he appeared with Danis Tanovic’s documentary drama An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker, in which he re-enacts an episode, together with his family, from his own life as scrap collector in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
After suffering a miscarriage, Mujic’s wife was turned away from the hospital because she is Roma, and Mujic struggled to scrape together the money to care for her. Iron Picker also won the Silver Bear Grand Jury prize in Berlin.
Mujic applied for asylum in Germany, something the Berlin Festival supported. But his application was rejected and he was sent back to Bosnia. When he again fell on hard times, the actor sold his Silver Bear award for $5,000 to buy food for his family.
