Woody Harrelson to Receive Sarajevo Heart Award This Year

There’s a particular kind of applause reserved for actors who seem to live inside their roles rather than perform them. Woody Harrelson will get that salute at the Sarajevo Film Festival when he accepts the honorary Heart of Sarajevo this August.

The 32nd edition of the festival names Harrelson among its honorary recipients alongside Emily Watson — who will also chair the jury — plus Asghar Farhadi and Diego Luna. Short sentence. Big honor.

Harrelson is a familiar face to awards audiences: three Oscar nominations, spanning leading and supporting work. He earned a Best Actor nomination for The People vs. Larry Flynt and two Best Supporting Actor nods for The Messenger and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Critics also pointed to his role in Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winner Triangle of Sadness as another reminder of his range.

“Woody Harrelson is one of those artists who makes the audience believe him even in the most unexpected roles,” said Jovan Marjanović, director of the Sarajevo Film Festival. “At the same time, he carries a presence that feels utterly ordinary — as if he could be the neighbor you bump into on the street. Achieving that level of naturalism on screen is one of the hardest feats for an actor, and Harrelson has done it again and again. His talent, charisma and boldness will inspire future generations, and we are proud to present him with the Heart of Sarajevo.”

To honor his presence, the festival will re-screen Michael Winterbottom’s Welcome to Sarajevo, which debuted at Cannes in 1997 and played Sarajevo the same year. It’s a nod to a film that helped bind Harrelson’s career to the region’s cinematic history.

What’s he been up to lately? Harrelson has just wrapped Netflix’s The Cackling of the Dodos, opposite Sam Rockwell. He also wrote, directed and starred in Lost in London — notable as the first feature filmed in a single continuous take and broadcast live to cinemas. On television, audiences know him from Cheers, True Detective and The White House Plumbers. That mix of stage, screen and television work is exactly why festivals still want him on their stages.

The Sarajevo Film Festival runs from August 14 to 21 this year. Expect tributes, a revived classic, and an evening when a very particular kind of applause says everything that needs to be said.