Celebrated Mexican actor-director Gael Garcia Bernal, the winner of the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo award of the 2014 Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF), will be a special guest of the Festival’s 25th edition, the Festival said.

Bernal won international acclaim with a string of prominent roles in a number of award-winning films including Pedro Almodovar's BAD EDUCATION, Alfonso Cuaron's Y Tu Mama Tambien, Inarritu's BABEL, Walter Salles’ THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES, Pablo Larraín's NERUDA and Amazon’s series MOZART IN THE JUNGLE which nabbed two Golden Globe awards in 2016.

At the 25th Sarajevo Film Festival, Bernal will present his directorial feature CHICUAROTES which premiered in Cannes earlier this year. The Sarajevo Film Festival will also screen, in its Open Air section, the latest film by Elia Suleiman, IT MUST BE HEAVEN, in which Bernal played one of the main roles.

CHICUAROTES will have a special screening at the Meeting Point Cinema in Sarajevo on Wednesday, August 21, at 17:30 local time. The screening will be followed by Gael García Bernal's masterclass and a Q&A session about his life and career.

Bernal’s second directorial feature CHICUAROTES is a film about two teenagers from San Gregorio Atlapulco and their desperate efforts to escape poverty and misery. Attempting to raise enough money to buy freedom, the two young men spiral ever deeper into Mexico’s dark criminal world.

Bernal made his directorial debut in 2007 with DEFICIT, followed by numerous short films including THE LETTER which he directed for the full-length feature film 8; LUCIO which was a segment of the collective Mexican film REVOLUCION; LA MANO VISIBLE he directed for the Sundance Institute Short Film Challenge and LOVE OF MY LIFE for the collective feature MADLY produced by MTV. He also directed, along with Marc Silver, the four short films, THE INVISIBLES, for Amnesty International.