Wim Wenders (pic: Peter Lindbergh)
The 27th Sarajevo Film Festival (13-20 August) will pay tribute to German director Wim Wenders in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the art of film. Wenders will be presented with the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award and honoured with a retrospective of his selected works in the “Tribute to” Programme.
“We are delighted to honour one of the central figures of modern cinema. With his work in the field of visual arts as an exceptional filmmaker and photographer, Wim Wenders continues to give the audience unforgettable stories and emotions,” commented Sarajevo Festival Director Mirsad Purivatra.
Wenders will be returning to Sarajevo Film Festival ten years after his first visit. In 2011 he presented the 3D feature-length documentary Pina, an homage to the legendary choreographer Pina Bausch (1940-2009), which was nominated for an Academy Award.
Other Oscar-nominated documentaries directed by Wenders are Buena Vista Social Club (1999) and The Salt of the Earth (2014).
At Sarajevo 2021 the festival will also organize a special screening of the newly restored version of Wender’s fiction film The Million Dollar Hotel, winner of the Silver Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival (2000).
Wenders came to international prominence as one of the pioneers of the New German Cinema during the 1970’s and is considered to be one of the most important figures in the history of film.
His international breakthrough came with The American Friend (1977). Since then Wenders has continued to work both in Europe and the USA as well as in Latin America, Asia and Australia and has been honoured with countless awards at festivals around the world, including the Palme d’Or and a BAFTA for Paris, Texas (1984) and the Director’s Prize in Cannes for Wings of Desire (1987).
In addition to his many prize-winning feature films, his work as a scriptwriter, director, producer, photographer and author also encompasses an abundance of innovative documentary films, international photo exhibitions and numerous monographs, film books and prose. In 2020 his newest 3D installation ‘’Two Or Three Things I Know About Edward Hopper’’ premiered as part of the exhibition Edward Hopper at the Fondation Beyeler.
In the Autumn of 2012, together with his wife Donata, Wim Wenders established the Wim Wenders Foundation in Düsseldorf. The non-profit foundation developed a framework that brings together the cinematic, photographic, artistic and literary life work of the director in his native country. At the same time, the non-profit foundation supports young talents in the field of innovative narrative cinema through the Wim Wenders’ scholarship of the Film-und Medienstiftung NRW and promotes film education.
The 27th Sarajevo Film Festival will run 13-20 August 2021.
Previous Recipients of the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award include: Michel Franco (2020), Mads Mikkelsen (2020), Tim Roth (2019), Isabelle Huppert (2019), Alejandro González Iñárritu (2019), Paweł Pawlikowski (2019), Nijaz Hastor (2018), Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2018), Oliver Stone (2017), John Cleese (2017), Wolfgang Amadeus Brülhart (2016), Stephen Frears (2016), Robert De Niro (Lifetime Achievement Award, 2016), Benicio Del Toro (2015), Atom Egoyan (2015), Agnès B. (2015), Danis Tanović (2014), Gael García Bernal (2014), Béla Tarr (2013), Roberto Olla (2013), Branko Lustig (2012), Emil Tedeschi (2011), Jafar Panahi (2011), Angelina Jolie (2011), Dieter Kosslick (2010), Manfred Schmidt (2009), Cat Villiers (2008), Steve Buscemi (2007), Mike Leigh (2006), Gavrilo Grahovac (2006), Marco Müller (2005).
Previous Honourees of the Sarajevo Film Festival’s “Tribute to” Programme
include: Michel Franco (2020), Pawel Pawlikowski (2019), Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2018), Joshua Oppenheimer, Oliver Stone (2017), Amat Escalante (2016), Brillante Mendoza, Atom Egoyan (2015), Michael Winterbottom (2014), Cristi Puiu (2013), Todd Solondz (2012), Lucrecia Martel (2011), Bruno Dumont (2010), Jia Zhang-ke (2009), Todd Haynes (2008), Tsai Ming-Liang, Ulrich Seidl (2007), Abel Ferrara, Béla Tarr (2006), Alexander Payne (2005), Dušan Makavejev, Gaspar Noé (2004), Peter Mullan (2003), Stephen Frears (2002), Mike Leigh (2001), Steve Buscemi (2000).
