Charlie Kaufman to receive honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award
Charlie Kaufman (L) and Jack Black at the Variety Creative Impact Awards, California, U.S., Jan. 3, 2016. (Shutterstock Photo)


The organizers of the Sarajevo Film Festival announced that Charlie Kaufman, the Oscar-winning American writer and director, will be honored with the prestigious Honorary Heart of Sarajevo award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the art of film-making on Monday.

"We are thrilled that, after 15 years, we are welcoming back one of the most significant, world-renowned screenwriters and directors to the Sarajevo Film Festival, and honor him for his work and dedication to the art of film-making," said the director of the festival, Jovan Marjanovic, 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 between Aug. 11 and 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 bearing the same name.

Meanwhile, the series focusing on Mevlana Jalaluddin-i 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.