In recognition of his outstanding contribution to the art of filmmaking, Asghar Farhadi will receive the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo tonight at the National Theatre. Following the presentation of this prestigious award, a gala screening of his film A SEPARATION will take place. The Festival audience can explore a rich retrospective of Farhadi’s work, including his latest film PARALLEL STORIES, as part of the Tribute to programme at this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival.
Asghar Farhadi was born in 1972 in Iran. He became interested in cinema when he was a teenager and started his education in filmmaking by joining the Youth Cinema Society of Esfahan in 1986 where he made 8mm and 16mm short films. He received his Bachelor of dramatic Arts at Tehran University in 1998 and his Masters in Stage Direction a few years later. He devoted his final thesis to Harold Pinter and in particular the importance of silence and pauses in the playwright’s work.
He made his directorial debut with Dancing in the Dust(2002). After success of About Elly (2009), for which he won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlinale, Farhadi gained international recognition and critical acclaim with A Separation (2011), receiving no less than seventy awards, including an Academy Award® and a César for Best Foreign Film. He then left Iran for France to shoot The Past (2013), which won Bérénice Bejo the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. He then returned to Iran to direct The Salesman (2016) which premiered in competition at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where the film won Best Screenplay and Best Actor (Shahab Hosseini). The film became Farhadi’s biggest success and earned him the second Academy Award® of his career. The film, A Hero (2021) won the Grand Prix at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.
