Woody Harrelson will collect the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo at this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival, the event announced Monday, citing his three-decade acting career and range across drama and comedy. The festival runs August 14 to 21 in the Bosnian capital.
Festival director Jovan Marjanović praised Harrelson’s screen presence directly, saying the actor convinces audiences even in unlikely parts while still coming across as someone approachable off camera. He called that combination of ease and credibility one of the harder qualities for a performer to sustain across a long career.
The honor points to Harrelson’s three Academy Award nominations: best actor for “The People vs. Larry Flynt” and supporting actor nods for “The Messenger” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” Organizers also singled out his role in Ruben Östlund’s “Triangle of Sadness,” which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2022.
Sarajevo will mark the award with a screening of Michael Winterbottom’s 1997 drama “Welcome to Sarajevo,” in which Harrelson starred opposite Stephen Dillane and Marisa Tomei. The film follows a British television journalist covering the siege of Sarajevo who works to smuggle an orphaned girl out of the city, drawing on Michael Nicholson’s memoir “Natasha’s Story.” It premiered at Cannes the same year and screened at the festival’s own third edition later that year. The new screening takes place at the Coca-Cola Open Air Cinema.
Harrelson joins a lineup of 2026 honorees that includes Emily Watson, who also chairs this year’s jury, Asghar Farhadi and Diego Luna. The festival separately confirmed it will close with a newly restored print of Danis Tanović’s Oscar-winning “No Man’s Land,” marking 25 years since the Bosnian film’s Cannes premiere. Bosnian actor Emir Hadžihafizbegović will receive his own Honorary Heart of Sarajevo during the same edition.
Harrelson has several projects arriving soon. He appears opposite Matthew McConaughey in Apple TV’s “Brothers,” premiering September 23, and stars alongside Kristen Stewart in Quentin Dupieux’s “Full Phil,” which debuted at Cannes earlier this year. He has also wrapped Netflix’s “The Cackling of the Dodos” with Sam Rockwell and is producing a documentary about Austin’s Armadillo World Headquarters, the storied 1970s music venue.
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Now in its 32nd year, the Sarajevo Film Festival has built a reputation for honoring actors and directors whose work intersects with the region’s history, a tradition this year’s Harrelson tribute continues through its pairing with “Welcome to Sarajevo.”
