The Sarajevo Film Festival (August 11-18) has announced that Oliver Stone will be bestowed with the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo.

The prolific American writer, director, and producer has throughout his career been challenging the mainstream norms both in artistic form and established historical and political narratives, in films such as Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, Nixon, Natural Born Killers, W., Wall Street, Salvador, U Turn, Savages, Snowden [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Oliver Stone
scheda film] as well as in screenplays for Midnight Express, Scarface, Year of the Dragon, Conan the Barbarian, and topical documentaries like his trilogy on Fidel Castro, and the epic, 12-hour TV series The Untold History of the United States, and the just-released Putin Interviews.

Stone was born September 15, 1946 in New York City.  He wrote in 1965 “A Child Night’s Dream” about his youth, and it was published in 1997 by St. Martin’s Press. He served in the U.S. Army Infantry in Vietnam in 1967-68, and received the Bronze Star for Valor and the Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster. After returning from Vietnam, he completed his undergraduate studies at New York University Film School in 1971. He worked as a wiper in the Merchant Marine, and in New York as a taxi driver, advertising salesman, production assistant, and messenger.

Two weeks ago, the festival announced a Honorary Heart of Sarajevo will also go to John Cleese (read news).