British actress Emily Watson will head the jury of the feature film competition program at the 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival. She will also be presented with the Sarajevo Honorary Heart Award at the festival, in recognition of her contribution to world cinema.
Jovan Marjanovic, the festival’s director, said Watson was an actress whose “talent, intelligence and dedication to the arts have left a deep mark on modern cinema.” It added that throughout his career, Watson “has moved audiences and critics alike with performances of extraordinary emotional precision and intensity.”
Watson received Academy Award nominations for “Hillary and Jackie” and “Breaking the Waves,” and both an Emmy and a Golden Globe nomination for “Chernobyl.”
She received BAFTA nominations for “Breaking the Waves,” “Hilary and Jackie,” and “Angela’s Ashes,” and won a BAFTA Television Award for “Appropriate Adult.” Other notable roles include “Gosford Park,” “The Dresser,” “New York Synecdoche,” and “The Theory of Everything.”
In 2015 she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama, and last year she received the prestigious Richard Harris Award at BIFA 2025 for her outstanding contribution to British film.
Most recently, she played the role of Mary Shakespeare in Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, for which she was nominated for a BAFTA.
On television, she stars opposite Olivia Williams and Mark Strong in the HBO Max series Dune: Prophecy, and has just finished filming the second season.
The 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival will be held from August 14th to 21st.
