The Honorary Heart of Sarajevo is a small award, one that fits in a single palm and is shaped, literally, like a heart. Emily Watson held it on the stage of the National Theatre in Sarajevo with both hands, pressed against her chest, and got through her first sentences in tears. It happened on the night of August 15, ahead of a screening of Breaking the Waves, thirty years after that same film first played before a Sarajevo audience.
“Thank you so much. It’s quite hard to speak after that. As you can hear from that story, this festival has been a very, very precious part of my journey as an actress. This feels very real to me. I brought my children here because I feel that of all the film festivals in the world, this is the one whose spiritual heart is in the right place.”
The award was presented by Mirsad Purivatra, founder of the Sarajevo Film Festival and president of the Obala Art Centar Association, the man who put that very film on the program of the festival’s second edition back in 1996. Instead of a formal tribute, he told the audience how he first watched it.
“I still remember when I first watched that film while I was preparing the festival program. It was one of the most powerful film experiences of my life. At the center of it was Emily Watson. That was her first film role, and it was an extraordinary performance that announced the arrival of a great actress.”
Purivatra added that the festival had been inviting her back for years, hoping to hand her a Heart of Sarajevo, but that life kept having other plans, which is why he was glad the evening celebrated both her career and, as he put it, a long friendship with Sarajevo.
Why That Particular Film Was Brought Back
Because everything in that career started with it. Breaking the Waves, directed by Lars von Trier, was Emily Watson’s first film role, and it immediately won her the European Film Award for best actress, honors from the New York and Los Angeles film critics circles, and nominations for the Oscar, the Golden Globe and the BAFTA. Few acting careers have such a clear starting point, and fewer still get to have that starting point screened again in the same hall, before the same festival’s audience, with the actress sitting in the stalls.
What tied the film to the place that night was not the anniversary. It was a line from the actress herself, who dedicated the award to her friend Katrin and recalled how her colleague Jessie Buckley once described acting: going to work with your heart in your hand. Sarajevo, Watson said, understands the strength and the living nature of that struggle better than any other city. In a city like that, an award for acting inevitably reads as an award for endurance, and that is what sets the Heart of Sarajevo apart from most festival trophies.
Watson also has a job at this, the festival’s 32nd edition: she is chairing the jury of the Feature Film Competition. She won the Silver Bear for best supporting actress at this year’s Berlinale for Small Things Like These, picked up Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the miniseries Chernobyl, and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2015 for services to drama. She had not been to Sarajevo in two decades before this visit. Announcing her arrival, festival director Jovan Marjanovic said: “Twenty years after her last visit to Sarajevo, we are genuinely delighted to be able to welcome Emily Watson back to the festival.”
A Second Heart on the Same Night
That same day, at the Coca-Cola Summer Cinema, the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo was also presented to Mexican actor, director and producer Diego Luna. His path to Sarajevo runs through Alfonso Cuaron’s 2001 film Y Tu Mama Tambien, which launched him from Mexican cinema onto the international stage, and through the 2022 series Andor, on which he also serves as producer. Both seasons brought him two Golden Globe and two Critics Choice nominations each, while the series collected eight Emmy nominations for its first season and fourteen for its second.
“A quarter of a century ago he won our hearts with an unforgettable role in the film Y Tu Mama Tambien. Back then we hoped, and now we know, that we have before us an artist who never stops exploring and surprising us, moving from big-budget Hollywood spectacles to intimate, life-sized stories that reveal the richness of Latin American culture. Diego Luna has left a powerful mark on contemporary cinema through his exceptional body of work, and that is why it is an honor for us to present him with the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo,” Marjanovic said.
Luna is not in Sarajevo only to collect an award. He is presenting his new film as director, Ashes, which premiered in Cannes, and his sensibility as a director keeps its distance from the Hollywood roles audiences know him for. In 2005 he co-founded Ambulante, a traveling documentary film festival, a fact that says more about his grasp of cultural policy than any filmography could.
“I’ve wanted to come to Sarajevo for years. So many colleagues have spoken with such enthusiasm about the festival and their experiences here. I’m deeply honored that my work is being recognized with this award, and I’m really looking forward to presenting Ashes to the audience. See you soon!” Luna said.
The 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival runs through August 21. Two Honorary Hearts of Sarajevo were awarded on the same night, at two ends of the program: one alongside a film three decades old, the other alongside a film fresh out of Cannes this year. A festival that can hold both ends of that same line has not lasted thirty-two years by accident.
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Next storyEmily Watson to Lead Sarajevo Film Festival JuryThe British actress receives an Honorary Heart of Sarajevo and heads the competition jury, while Asghar Farhadi arrives for a retrospective and Pawlikowski opens the festival.
