Born in Belgrade, he was raised by his grandparents in Niš in southern Serbia,[1] following the divorce of his parents.

[2] Paskaljević belonged to a group of several Yugoslav filmmakers who studied abroad and graduated from the prestigious Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU).

The Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) presented a full retrospective of his work in January 2008.

[9][10] It was BFI Southbank's (London) turn to organize in July 2010 a full retrospective of his 16 feature films, along with the publication of a monograph (in English) about his work.

[12] His unproduced screenplay Cat's Cry (Mačji krik), cowritten with Đorđe Sibinović, went into production in 2023 with Sanja Živković as director, and both of Paskaljević's sons, Vladimir and Petar, as producers.