Double Palme d’Or-winning director Emir Kusturica has denied he claimed that his new film, On the Milky Road, was rejected by the Cannes film festival because of his outspoken support for Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Speaking to Screen Daily, Kusturica claimed that comments attributed to him by the Russian News Service were fabricated: “I’m just really confused. I don’t know what is going on. I have absolutely not spoken to anybody.”

The Serbian director went on to say that the real reason the film failed to make the Cannes selection was simply that it wouldn’t have been completed in time. “The Cannes film festival wanted the movie,” he said, “but we have not finished ... We have many things to do. We have to finish special effects and we also have some editing to do. We have to shorten the film a bit.”

The original report claimed that Kusturica had alleged political interference among the Cannes selectors. “I have suspicions that someone gave an order that my film shouldn’t be accepted.” However, Kusturica told Screen that Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux had tracked On the Milky Road for the last three years, and that it was only at a pre-Cannes screening of the latest edit that Kusturica himself decided that it was not in good enough shape to be ready for a festival premiere.

Born into a Bosnian Muslim family in Sarajevo, Kusturica was baptised into the Orthodox church in 2005, and attended Putin’s third presidential inauguration in 2012. He won the Palme d’Or in 1985 for When Father Was Away on Business, and again in 1995 for Underground.