Goran Paskaljevic was born in Belgrade on 22 April 1947.
Between 1967 and 1971, he studied at the well-known Prague school of cinema (FAMU).
From 1971 to the present, he has made 30 shorts/documentaries and 15 feature films, many of which have been shown and acclaimed at the most prestigious international film festivals.
The rise of nationalism in Yugoslavia forced him to leave his country in 1992. In 1998 he went back to make The Powder Keg (Cabaret Balkan) but his constant criticism of Milosevic’s regime met with violent, menacing attacks in the official press. Therefore, he decided once more to leave his native land in search of a country where he could make his film, How Harry Became a Tree. He found Ireland.

He returned to Belgrade upon the collapse of the Milosevic regime. There he shot is two  films: Midwinter Night's Dream and The Optimists.
In 2001, the International Film Guide (Variety) marks him as one of the top five directors of the year (together with Lasse Hallström, Neil Jordan,
Steven Soderbergh and Edward Yang). In January 2008, the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) presented a full retrospective of his work.
His new film Honeymoons has been completed in June this year.