Sean Bean Receives First Grand Oak Award in Gornji Milanovac

At 9 p.m. on September 26, in the main hall of the Mija Aleksic Cultural Center in Gornji Milanovac, British actor Sean Bean becomes the first recipient of the new Grand Oak award, the highest honor of the Gornji Milanovac International Film Festival for contributions to European and world cinema. Two hours earlier, at 7 p.m., in the same venue, the exhibition “Robin Hood in Serbia” opens, and just before the ceremony, the pilot episode of the first season of the series currently keeping the actor in the country is screened.

Why the award is named the Grand Oak

The name draws on the symbolism of the oak tree, strength, stability, growth and longevity, and on the festival’s ties to the Takovo region where it is held. According to organizers, the award is the highest ever established in the event’s history, intended for filmmakers whose work has left a lasting mark on cinema, and with it the festival, after more than a decade of growth, enters a new phase and strengthens its presence on the international scene. The twelfth edition runs from September 23 to October 4, organized by the Mija Aleksic Cultural Center, with a program covering three competition sections: European feature films under the banner “Films for You,” short works up to 25 minutes, and films by authors under 19. Running alongside it is “Mija Aleksic Days,” dedicated to one of the biggest names in Serbian and Yugoslav acting, sponsored by the Municipality of Gornji Milanovac, with the festival also co-financed by the Ministry of Culture.

Sean Bean and his ties to Serbia

Bean is currently in Serbia filming the second season of Robin Hood, a production from MGM+ and Lionsgate created by John Glenn, known for SEAL Team, with producer and director Jonathan English. The crew worked at several locations across the country, including the village of Varnice near Gornji Milanovac, and that part of the production now has its own exhibition: through original costumes, props, weapons and set pieces, “Robin Hood in Serbia” gives audiences a behind the scenes look at a production that put the town on the international film map, entirely by accident.

A career already part of the canon

Sean Bean trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, has won two BAFTA television awards, for his roles in Jimmy McGovern’s Broken and Time, and an International Emmy, along with a BAFTA nomination for his role in Accused. He won over global audiences as Boromir in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and remains a pop culture fixture as Ned Stark in the first season of Game of Thrones, as Alec Trevelyan in the Bond film GoldenEye, and as Odysseus in Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy. The list of roles that have entered genre film canon does not stop there: the title role in the long running ITV series Sharpe, the Sheriff of Nottingham in an earlier Amazon MGM+ adaptation of Robin Hood, and the leader of a Liverpool gang in the BBC crime series This City Is Ours. His television work also includes the Disney+ series Shardlake, in which he plays Thomas Cromwell, Stefan Golaszewski’s Marriage opposite Nicola Walker, as well as Snowpiercer, World on Fire and Medici: Masters of Florence.

Among the films that have recently brought him back to the big screen is Anemone, in which he stars alongside Daniel Day Lewis, while by the end of the year he is expected in Duncan Jones’s comic book adaptation Rogue Trooper, the action film Deep Cover for Prime Video, and the biographical drama Yellow Tie with John Malkovich in the lead role. A western thriller titled The Isolate Thief, set during the American Civil War, has also been announced. Gornji Milanovac thus gains not only an actor whose filmography has long been part of the European film canon, but also the first chance to give its newly established award to a name that, at least in the organizers’ vision, the award itself should outlive.