Iranian screenwriter and director Asghar Farhadi, who won Oscars with “A Separation” and “The Salesman,” will be honored at the 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival, which runs Aug. 14 to 21. The filmmaker will receive the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo in recognition of his “outstanding contribution to the art of cinema.”
A retrospective of his work will be presented as part of the festival’s “Tribute To” program.
Jovan Marjanović, director of the festival, said, “It is difficult to overstate Asghar Farhadi’s significance to world cinema. His remarkable body of work reminds us that the most profound dramas are often concealed within everyday life. His films do not offer easy answers; instead, they invite us to look more closely, listen more carefully and engage with life’s complexities.”
Farhadi served as Sarajevo’s president of the jury for the feature film competition in 2018, where his film “Everybody Knows” was screened in the Open Air program.
Farhadi’s interest in cinema began when he was a teenager and he started his education in filmmaking by joining the Youth Cinema Society of Esfahan in 1986, where he made 8mm and 16mm short films. He received his Bachelor of Dramatic Arts at Tehran University in 1998 and his Masters in Stage Direction a few years later. He devoted his final thesis to Harold Pinter and in particular the importance of silence and pauses in the playwright’s work.
