He has also written and directed the award-winning films An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker (2013) and Death in Sarajevo (2016).

Tanović is the only person born in the territory of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina to have won an Academy Award.

Due to the siege of Sarajevo and the Bosnian War, following Bosnia and Herzegovina's declaration of independence from Yugoslavia, Tanović was forced to stop his studies in 1992.

Immediately after war broke out, he formed a film crew that followed the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina going on dangerous missions.

Inspired by Euripides' Medea, L'Enfer explores the lives of three sisters, "each locked in her own unhappiness, nursing a secret flower of misery, the seed for which was planted by their late father with a terrible incident in their girlhood" (from a review by Peter Bradshaw).

[10][11] Tanović holds joint Bosnian and Belgian citizenship and lives in Sarajevo with his wife Maelys de Rudder and five children.

He stated his motivations as wanting to bring political change to the country; his announcement was received positively.