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AMORES PERROS and Gael García Bernal at the HT Eronet Open Air Cinema tonight

The 20th anniversary edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival opens tonight at three different locations. The cult film by Alejandro González Iñárritu, AMORES PERROS, winner of the 2000 Cannes Film Festival in 2000 and nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2001 Academy Awards, has the honour of opening the Open Air programme.

The film, hailed by many as "the first classic film of the new decade", begins with a scene of a car accident and goes on to imaginatively interweave the stories of its three victims: Octavio, a young man who has fallen in love with his violent brother's wife; Valeria, a beautiful Mexican model for whom physical appearances are everything; and El Chivo, a former paid assassin now exiled from his family. The film is ultimately a disturbing, deeply emotional eulogy to life, loss and dog fighting on Mexico's mean streets.

Alejandro González Iñárritu, born in Mexico City, studied drama under the Polish director Ludwik Margules, then studied directing in Los Angeles. The success of AMORES PERROS won Iñárritu an invitation to the U.S. to direct the film 21 GRAMS, starring Benicio Del Toro, Naomi Watts and Sean Penn.  For his next film, BABEL, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett among others, Iñárritu won Best Director at the 2006 Cannes Festival, as well as nominations for the Golden Globes and Academy Awards.

The film’s popular star, Gael García Bernal, guest of this year's Sarajevo Film Festival and recipient of the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo, will attend the screening at the HT Eronet Open Air Cinema tonight at 20:30.