Meg Ryan honored for her achievement by Sarajevo Film Festival

Ryan was one of four film writers to receive the award, alongside American and Palestinian film directors Alexander Payne and Elia Suleiman, and American actor and producer John Turturro.

“This is an award for his outstanding contribution to the world of cinema and his incredible talent,” festival director Jovan Marjanovic said before presenting Ryan with a heart-shaped silver award.

Ryan symbolically presented a special screening of his 1998 hit romantic comedy “You’ve Got Mail” in an open-air cinema, the same venue where it first premiered at the festival in 1999.

In a masterclass moderated by Oscar-winning Bosnian film director Danis Tanovic, Ryan talked about his second feature film, “What Happens Later,” which he directed, wrote and co-starred in with David Duchovny, which also screened at the festival.

She said she had taken up acting to pay for her journalism studies and was an “untrained actress”.

“There was a naivety in me, which I now see as a very valuable thing, a certain naivety, innocence that you have as an artist is very important,” she said.

The Sarajevo Film Festival, a film showcase stretching from Vienna to Istanbul, was created 30 years ago by a group of film lovers at the end of the Bosnian war. This year it will screen a total of 240 films.

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