Charlie Kaufman to be honored at 29th Sarajevo Film Festival

By Handan Kazanci

ISTANBUL (AA) – Oscar-winning American writer and director Charlie Kaufman will receive the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo for his contribution to the art of filmmaking at this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival, the organizers announced on Monday.

“We are thrilled that, after 15 years, we are welcoming back to the Sarajevo Film Festival one of the most significant, world-renowned screenwriters & directors, and honor him for his work and dedication to the art of filmmaking,” said Jovan Marjanovic, the director of the festival, in a statement.

“Charlie Kaufman is an extraordinary filmmaker whose films, though filled with biting humor, compel us to contemplate existential depths of the human experience,” Marjanovic added.

The 29th edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival will take place from Aug. 11 to 18.

The festival will also feature an open-air screening of his 2002 film Adaptation.

In 2008, Kaufman was a guest for the festival with his directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York.

In 2020, he released "I Am Thinking of Ending Things," a psychological thriller based on Iain Reid's book of the same name.

Meanwhile, the series focusing on Mevlana Jalaluddin al-Rumi – better known in the West as Rumi – a 13th-century mystic, poet, and philosopher, broadcast by Turkish national broadcast TRT's digital platform Tabii, will make its world premiere at the festival.

*Lejla Biogradlija in Sarajevo contributed to this story.