Oscar Winner Oliver Stone to Receive Honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award

The Sarajevo Film Festival will today host acclaimed director Oliver Stone, who will be presented with the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo award for his outstanding contribution to film art at the 23rd Festival edition. After receiving the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo, the audience will have the opportunity to watch the brilliant film "Good Time" by directors Josh and Benny Safdie under the open sky at the Summer Cinema, reports Patria News Agency.

A multiple Academy Award winner, Oliver Stone has written and directed over 20 feature films, and his oeuvre includes some of the most influential, cult titles that have marked past decades. In some of his films, Stone completely rejected the conventions of the genre, and in this context, the most frequently mentioned are MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (1978), which is also the first film from his Vietnam trilogy, and the films BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (1989), JFK (1991), NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994), NIXON (1995), as well as the satirical film portrait of former US President George W. Bush W (2008) and the docudrama about the life of American whistleblower Edward Snowden SNOWDEN (2016).

His films have captured the attention of a wide, international audience and have had a significant cultural impact. Among such films are the sharp cinematic critique of American involvement in Central America SALVADOR (1985), a critical portrayal of American corporate capitalism WALL STREET (1987), the true story of two of the only 20 people who survived the terrorist attack in New York on September 11, 2001, WORLD TRADE CENTER, and a poetic tribute to the sixties and the ecstatic music of Jim Morrison THE DOORS (1991).

Among other things, he is also the author of the films ANY GIVEN SUNDAY (1999), an unusual record of the state of sports in America; the epic historical drama ALEXANDER (2004) and ALEXANDER — THE ULTIMATE CUT (2014); and WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS (2010), a realistic sequel about the 2008 financial crisis and the life of Gordon Gekko after serving his prison sentence.

Stone's series of films on the theme of crime, in addition to NATURAL BORN KILLERS, also includes the titles U-TURN (1997) and SAVAGES (2012).

His screenplays for films by other directors gave him the first insight into the full complexity of his own ideas. The audience greeted MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (1979) with enthusiasm that only grew after the film SCARFACE (1983). He also wrote the screenplays for the films YEAR OF THE DRAGON (1985) and CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982). Stone has produced or co-produced dozens of titles, including the films THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT (1996), HEAVEN & EARTH (1993), and THE DOORS (1990).

He is also the author of several documentaries, including three films about Fidel Castro COMANDANTE (2003); LOOKING FOR FIDEL (2004) and CASTRO IN WINTER (2012); and one film about the huge social changes in South America, SOUTH OF THE BORDER (2009), which pays significant attention to Hugo Chavez and six other South American presidents. He also made a film about Israeli-Palestinian relations, PERSONA NON GRATA (2003).

Stone recently directed the monumental, twelve-hour TV series THE UNTOLD HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES (Showtime, 2012) about the prevailing, triumphalist interpretation of American history and a four-part conversation with the Russian president, THE PUTIN INTERVIEWS (Showtime, 2017).

He was born on September 15, 1946, in New York, and in 1965 he wrote "A Child's Dream," an autobiographical novel about his own youth, published by St. Martin's Press in 1997. He served in the US Army and fought in Vietnam as an infantryman in 1967 and 1968, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster. Upon his return from Vietnam, he continued his studies at New York University Film School, where he graduated in 1971. He worked as a deckhand on merchant marine ships, and as a taxi driver in New York, an advertising salesman, a production assistant, and a courier.