The British actor, screenwriter, and producer, John Cleese, who is the special guest of the 23rd Sarajevo Film Festival, received the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo award for the outstanding contribution to film art last night at the Raiffeisen Summer Theater. He made the audience laugh in his own characteristic way during the award ceremony.
Director of the SFF Mirsad Purivatra said that there is a reason for each and every Heart of Sarajevo, and this Heart of Sarajevo is going to someone who taught us that irony and laughter can go together.
Thousands of gathered citizens and visitors of the Sarajevo Film Festival welcomed this legend with long and loud applause and ovations.
“It’s great to be here tonight. It is a great pleasure for me to be in Sarajevo, and when he offered to be a member of the jury next year, I will be glad to return to Sarajevo next year. The award is very generous. I am uncomfortable with the fact that I am in the same category with the people who received it earlier, such as Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese, but I did not accept it as a person from the world of film, but as a comedian, because I think that we need comedy now more than ever before. Comedy and laughter are crucial for the time in which we live now,” said John Cleese.
“I am touched with the terrible time when you were under the siege. It is a great thing that this man started this kind of cinema and events. It was amazing to start something out of nothing and I hope you are all proud,” added Cleese.
He said that he likes to laugh and that he is laughing at Trump and what he is doing.
He started writing his memoirs at the age of 74 and added that everything that happened last night will be written in his memoirs.
To recall, John Cleese walked on a red carpet in front of the National Theater in Sarajevo before taking the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo in front of the National Theatre Sarajevo.
(Source: E. S. H./Klix.ba)
