Woody Harrelson arrives in Sarajevo to receive festival’s highest honour

Harrelson was welcomed by Sarajevo Film Festival Director Jovan Marjanovic and posed for photographs outside Sarajevo City Hall, one of the Bosnian capital’s most recognisable landmarks.

The Honorary Heart of Sarajevo is the festival’s highest distinction, awarded to prominent filmmakers and actors in recognition of their contribution to the art of film.

The three-time Academy Award nominee is one of the most recognisable and versatile American actors of his generation, with a career spanning film, television and theatre.

Harrelson received his first Oscar nomination for his leading performance in Miloš Forman’s “The People vs. Larry Flynt” and was later nominated for supporting roles in “The Messenger” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”.

More recently, he appeared in Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s “Triangle of Sadness”, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022.

“Woody Harrelson is one of those actors whom you believe even in the most unlikely roles, while at the same time you can easily imagine him as someone you spend time with every day,” Marjanovic said when announcing the award.

“That incredible ease of simply being on screen is actually one of the hardest things to achieve in front of a camera, and he manages it film after film. His talent, charisma and courage are an inspiration to many future generations. It is an honour for us to present him with the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo.”

A return to a film closely tied to Bosnia

Harrelson’s visit also carries particular significance for Sarajevo because the festival will screen Michael Winterbottom’s 1997 war drama “Welcome to Sarajevo”, in which he played American journalist Flynn.

Set during the siege of Sarajevo, the film follows foreign correspondents covering the war in Bosnia and a British journalist who becomes determined to help a young girl escape the besieged city.

It was based on British journalist Michael Nicholson’s book “Natasha’s Story”, which recounted his experiences covering the Bosnian war and his efforts to evacuate a child from Sarajevo.

“Welcome to Sarajevo” premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 and was screened at the third Sarajevo Film Festival later that year.

Its return to the festival nearly three decades later provides a symbolic link between Harrelson’s visit and the history of an event that itself emerged from wartime Sarajevo.

The Sarajevo Film Festival was founded in 1995, during the final months of the nearly four-year siege of the Bosnian capital, and has since grown into one of Southeast Europe’s leading film festivals.

“Welcome to Sarajevo” will be shown at the festival’s large outdoor Coca-Cola Open Air Cinema as part of its Open Air programme.