Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman receives honorary award at Sarajevo Film Festival

SARAJEVO - The 30th Sarajevo Film Festival honoured Palestinian film director Elia Suleiman for his “outstanding contribution” to the art of film.

The filmmaker was presented with the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award and honored with a retrospective of his selected works in the festival’s “Tribute to” program.

“This is the right moment to receive the Heart of Sarajevo, because as Jovan Marjanović mentioned, we live in difficult times, and we must allow cinema to make the world less violent,” said Suleiman.

“We need to share our hearts and love. When I return home, I will transplant this heart,” he added.

Suleiman was a guest at Sarajevo in 2019, where his film “It Must Be Heaven” was screened in the Open Air program. The film had received the special jury mention at Cannes the same year. He also served as the president of the jury at Sarajevo in 2016, and was a guest at the festival in 2013.

Suleiman received another accolade at the festival – a retrospective program dedicated to him. Over the first four days of the festival, nine of his works, representing the majority of his award-winning career, will be screened.

Marjanović, the festival’s director, said Suleiman’s “universal language of cinema speaks to fundamental human values and emotions: fear and hope, home and homeland.”

“With his trademark wit, humor and profound insight, he navigates the complexities of our existence, shedding light on the absurdities of life with unmatched clarity and poignancy, portraying the spirit and identity of Palestine with a unique authorial style. Now, in the darkest of times in his native land, his work serves as a beacon of understanding, reminding us of the power of storytelling to inspire meaningful dialogue,” said Marjanović.

Born in 1960 in Nazareth, Suleiman lived in New York from 1981 to 1993. While in the US, he directed his first two short films, “Introduction to the End of an Argument” and “Homage by Assassination,” winning numerous awards.

In 1994, he settled down in Jerusalem, where the European Commission had entrusted him with the mission of creating a Film and Media Department at Birzeit University.

His first feature film, “Chronicle of a Disappearance,” won the best first film prize at the 1996 Venice Film Festival. In 2002, “Divine Intervention” won the jury prize and the Fipresci International Critics Prize at Cannes as well as the best foreign film prize at the European Film Awards.

In 2007, he was chosen as one of the 35 directors of “To Each His Own Cinema,” a collective film for Cannes’ 60th anniversary. His feature film “The Time That Remains” was in the official competition at Cannes in 2009.

In 2012, he completed the short film “Diary of a Beginner,” part of a collective feature titled “7 Days in Havana.” The film was in Un Certain Regard at Cannes. His last feature film, “It Must Be Heaven,” won the jury special mention in Cannes in 2019, and the Fipresci prize.

Suleiman has participated in numerous festivals as a jury member, including Cannes and Venice. He was named Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2020. Suleiman was the recipient of the European Film Academy’s achievement in world cinema award in 2022.

Suleiman is currently serving as an artistic advisor for the Doha Film Institute.