AFTER 25 YEARS, BACK IN SARAJEVO: Willem Dafoe to Receive the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo at the 31st SFF

(Patria) - As recognition for his exceptional contribution to film art, actor Willem Dafoe will be awarded the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival.

With more than 150 films in his career, Willem Dafoe is an internationally acclaimed actor known for his versatility, courage, and willingness to take risks in some of the most significant films of our time. His artistic curiosity and need to explore human nature lead him to projects around the world – from major Hollywood productions to independent films.

At the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival, Dafoe will also hold a masterclass, where he will share his experiences and thoughts on contemporary art with young talents, film professionals, and the festival audience.

“Willem Dafoe returns to the Sarajevo Film Festival after 25 years, and it is a great pleasure for us to award him the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo. Every actor aspires to achieve a body of work like the one he has built, and each role confirms his exceptional acting skill. Whether he plays in a Hollywood blockbuster or a low-budget independent film, his characters are always complex, emotional, and unforgettable,” said Jovan Marjanović, Director of the Sarajevo Film Festival.

In 1979, Dafoe got a role in Michael Cimino’s film Heaven’s Gate, but was soon dismissed from the production. Since then, he has collaborated with directors who form a veritable encyclopedia of contemporary cinema: Wes Anderson, Patricia Arquette, Kathryn Bigelow, Kenneth Branagh, Tim Burton, Scott Cooper, Anton Corbijn, Saverio Costanzo, David Cronenberg, Abel Ferrara, Mary Harron, Werner Herzog, Walter Hill, Spike Lee, David Lynch, Hayao Miyazaki, Phillip Noyce, Sam Raimi, Dee Rees, Jason Reitman, Robert Rodriguez, Isaiah Saxon, Julian Schnabel, Paul Schrader, Martin Scorsese, Zack Snyder, Guillermo del Toro, Lars von Trier, James Wan, Wim Wenders, Yorgos Lanthimos, Zhang Yimou, and many others.

He has been nominated four times for the Academy Award® – as Best Actor for his role as Vincent van Gogh in At Eternity’s Gate (and a Golden Globe nomination), and as Best Supporting Actor in Oliver Stone’s Platoon, E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire (also nominated for Golden Globe and SAG Awards), and Sean Baker’s The Florida Project (also nominated for Golden Globe and SAG Awards).

He is a recipient of the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the National Board of Review Award, and a two-time winner of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award. He has also won two Independent Spirit Awards, the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival, and the Honorary Golden Bear at the Berlinale for lifetime achievement.

Recently, he won the Iris Award from the Hellenic Film Academy for Best Actor in the film Inside by Vasilis Katsoupis.

With his wife, director Giada Colagrande, he has collaborated on four films: Padre, A Woman, Before It Had a Name, and the documentary Bob Wilson’s Life and Death of Marina Abramović.

His adventurous spirit is reflected in roles such as Thomas Wake in The Lighthouse; Marcus, the elite assassin and mentor to Keanu Reeves in the John Wick series; the voice of the fish Gill in Pixar’s animated hit Finding Nemo; Pasolini in the eponymous film by Abel Ferrara; FBI agent Paul Smecker in the cult classic The Boondock Saints; Leonhard Seppala in the film Togo, about the 1925 serum run to save Alaska; and the legendary role of Norman Osborn/Green Goblin, which he reprised in Jon Watts’ Spider-Man: No Way Home. That spirit continues in upcoming films: Late Fame by Kent Jones, The Man in My Basement by Nadia Latif, The Birthday Party by Miguel Ángel Jiménez, The Souffleur by Gastón Solnicki, and Tenzing by Jennifer Peedom. Soon, he will begin filming Cuddle by Bárbara Paz and Werwulf by Robert Eggers – their fourth collaboration – followed by Eggers’ adaptation of A Christmas Carol for Warner Bros.

Recently, he was appointed Artistic Director of the Theatre Department of the Venice Biennale for the 2025 and 2026 seasons. He was one of the founders of The Wooster Group – a New York experimental theatre troupe – with which he worked from 1977 to 2005 in the USA and abroad. After that, he collaborated with Richard Foreman on the play Idiot Savant at the Public Theatre in New York, with Robert Wilson on international productions of The Life & Death of Marina Abramović and The Old Woman (alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov), on Marina Abramović’s opera 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, and with Romeo Castellucci on an adaptation of Hawthorne’s The Minister’s Black Veil.