Charlie Kaufman is receiving the honorary Heart of Sarajevo award at the Sarajevo Film Festival.
The ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless’ mind screenwriter, 64, is getting the gong in recognition of his contribution to the art of filmmaking at the 29th annual event, which will run from 11 to 18 August.
It will also hold an open-air screening of 2002’s ‘Adaptation’, also written by Kaufman and directed by his long-time collaborator Spike Jonze, 53.
Jovan Marjanović, the festival’s director, said: “We are thrilled that, after 15 years, we are welcoming back to the (festival) one of the most significant, world-renowned screenwriters and directors, and honour him for his work and dedication to the art of filmmaking.
“Charlie Kaufman is an extraordinary filmmaker whose films, though filled with biting humour, compel us to contemplate existential depths of the human experience.”
Charlie was previously a guest of the festival in 2008 when he presented his directorial debut ‘Synecdoche, New York’ about a tortured theatre director played by the late Phillip Seymour-Hoffman having an existential crisis.
Charlie’s writing career kicked off in the early 1990s on the cult sitcom ‘Get a Life’, and he spent most of the decade writing for TV before moving into movies.
His screenplay for 1999’s ‘Being John Malkovich’ – about the actor John Malcovich discovering a portal into his mind – earned him nominations for an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award.
He also wrote the screenplays for ‘Confessions of a Dangerous Mind’, based on Chuck Barris’ autobiography, about the TV executive who claimed he lived a secret life as a US government assassin.
His meta comedy ‘Adaptation’ starring Meryl Streep, Nicolas Cage and Chris Cooper, was about Charlie’s struggles to stay original in his work and also earned him an Academy Award nod – with his ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ screenplay finally winning him the Oscar for best original screenplay.
In 2009, Kaufman won an Independent Spirit Award for directing ‘Synecdoche, New York’ and his animation ‘Anomalisa’ about a despairing motivational speaker was nominated at the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes and the Annie Awards.
His most recent feature was 2020’s surrealist thriller ‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things’ about a couple in the throes of a break-up, which he wrote and directed. The same year Charlie published his first novel, ‘Antkind’.
