In recognition of their outstanding acting careers, Woody Harrelson and Emir Hadžihafizbegović will both receive the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo at the 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival (14-21 August).

As one of the most highly acclaimed and versatile actors of his generation, with a career spanning film, television and theatre, US actor Woody Harrelson has earned three Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor for The People vs. Larry Flynt and Best Supporting Actor for The Messenger and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and starred in Ruben Östlund's Palme d'Or winner Triangle of Sadness.

“Woody Harrelson is one of those actors you believe in even in the most improbable roles, while at the same time you can easily imagine him as someone you might spend time with every day. His talent, charisma and boldness serve as an inspiration to many future generations. It is our great honour to present him with the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo,” said Jovan Marjanović, director of the Sarajevo Film Festival. The festival will screen Michael Winterbottom's Welcome to Sarajevo (1997), which premiered at Cannes and was screened at the third Sarajevo Film Festival later that year, as part of the Open Air programme. Harrelson stars in one of the leading roles of the film, a powerful examination of the war in Bosnia in the mid-1990s and the role of journalists in its media coverage, based on journalist Michael Nicholson's book Natasha's Story.

On the other hand, Emir Hadžihafizbegović is one of the most distinguished actors in Bosnian and Herzegovinian and regional cinema. He has appeared in more than 70 features and over 100 roles across theatre, film and other media. His work has been marked by collaborations with directors such as Ognjen Sviličić, Rajko Grlić, Jasmila Žbanić, Pjer Žalica, Srđan Vuletić and Emir Kusturica, while films in which he has appeared have received awards at major international festivals including Cannes, Berlin, Locarno and IFFR. For his performance in These Are the Rules, he won the Best Actor Award in the Orizzonti section at Venice.

“Among us are artists whose work becomes part of a community’s cultural memory. Looking back at the cinema of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the wider region, we find Emir Hadžihafizbegović’s presence everywhere - in performances woven deeply into some of its most significant film achievements. It is a privilege to present the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo to an artist whose body of work has helped define the cinema of the very place from which he emerged, the same place from which the Sarajevo Film Festival itself grew more than three decades ago,” commented Marjanović.