LONDON — Actor Gael Garcia Bernal, designer and filmmaker Agnes B., and director Danis Tanovic will receive the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo at the 20th Sarajevo Film Festival.
Agnes B. and Garcia Bernal will receive their awards at the opening ceremony. Tanovic will receive his award in the National Theater on the last night of the festival.
Agnes B. will present her feature “Je m’appelle hmmm…” on the second day of the festival, which runs Aug. 15-23.
Three films will be screened on the opening night. In the festival’s largest venue, HT Eronet Open Air Cinema, there’ll be a screening of “Amores Perros,” the debut feature of Mexican director Alejandro Inarritu.
Inarritu’s film plays as part of a tribute to Mexican cinema, and has been selected for two reasons. First, it heralded the emergence of the Mexican new wave cinema, and second, it introduced Garcia Bernal, who was only 20 at the time.
Since then, Sarajevo festivalgoers have seen Garcia Bernal in performances that have included Pedro Almodovar’s “Bad Education,” Lukas Moodysson’s “Mammoth,” Julia Loktev’s “The Lonliest Planet,” and Alfonso Cuaron’s “Y Tu Mama Tambien.”
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Bernal will attend the screening of “Amores Perros,” and meet with young filmmakers from Southeast Europe a day later to mark the opening of the Sarajevo Talents, which is run in cooperation with the Berlinale.
The “Bridges of Sarajevo” omnibus, which premiered at Cannes, will also be screened on the opening night. The film is a tribute to the city. Most of the directors, including Christi Puiu, Vladimir Perisic, Aida Begic, Marc Recha, Angela Shanelec, Isild Le Besco, Luis da Matta Almeida and Jean-Michel Frodon, will attend the screening of their film at the National Theater.
As in previous years, the Meeting Point Cinema hosts the opening of the Kinoscope sidebar on the first night of the festival with the screening of the Icelandic film “Of Horses and Men” by Benedikt Erlingsson. The film’s lead actor, Igvar Sigurdsson, will attend the screening.
