Asghar Farhadi To Receive Honorary Award At Sarajevo Film Festival

Asghar Farhadi is set to receive an Honorary Heart of Sarajevo award at the upcoming Sarajevo Film Festival. The acclaimed Iranian director and screenwriter is set to accept the award in person, while a retrospective of his work will be presented as part of the festival’s ‘Tribute To’ program.

Farhadi returns to Sarajevo eight years after serving as President of the Jury for the festival’s feature film competition in 2018, where his film Everybody Knows was screened in the Open Air program.

The Iranian born writer-director made his directorial debut with Dancing in the Dust in 2002. After the success of About Elly in 2009, for which he won the Silver Bear for Best Director at Berlinale, Farhadi gained international recognition and critical acclaim with A Separation, which won an Academy Award and a César for Best Foreign Film.

He then left Iran for France to shoot The Past, which earned Bérénice Bejo the Best Actress Award at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. After that film, Farhadi returned to Iran to direct The Salesman, which premiered In Competition at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where it won Best Screenplay and Best Actor (Shahab Hosseini). That film became Farhadi’s biggest success and earned him the second Academy Award of his career. In 2021, his film A Hero won the Grand Prix in Cannes. His latest film, Parallel Tales, shot in France and also screened in Cannes earlier this year.

“It is difficult to overstate Asghar Farhadi’s significance to world cinema,” said Jovan Marjanović, Director of the Sarajevo Film Festival. “His remarkable body of work reminds us that the most profound dramas are often concealed within everyday life. His films do not offer easy answers; instead they invite us to look more closely, listen more carefully and engage with life’s complexities. We are honored to welcome Farhadi back to the festival and present him with the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo.”

The 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival takes place August 14-21, 2026.