Tag Archives: Donostia Award

Pedro Almodóvar to Receive San Sebastian Film Festival’s Donostia Award

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It’s another career honor for Pedro Almodóvar…

The San Sebastian Film Festival will fete the 74-year-old Spanish Oscar-winning filmmaker with its prestigious Donostia Award at its 72nd edition, running September 20-28.

Pedro AlmodóvarPresentation of the honorary award, which the festival said recognizes “extraordinary contributions to the world of cinema”, will take place in the Kursaal Auditorium before a screening of his latest movie, The Room Next Door.

The film is Almodóvar’s first in English and stars Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore.

The Room Next Door will debut at Venice. Swinton will present Almodóvar with the award in San Sebastian.

Almodóvar first screened at San Sebastian with his second feature, Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón / Pepi, Luci, Bom, competing in the New Filmmakers section.

He competed in the Official Selection with his next film, Laberinto de pasiones / Labyrinth of Passions (1982).

Almodóvar has also previously handed out Donostia Awards in San Sebastian. Over the years, he presented the honorary award to Al Pacino, Woody Allen and Antonio Banderas.

“My career began in San Sebastian in the year 1980 and since then I have returned to the festival often, with or without a film,” Almodóvar said.

“I have always immensely enjoyed myself. I have given the Donostia Award to Al Pacino, Woody Allen and Antonio Banderas. This year they are giving it to me, and I am delighted and grateful. I mean it, it’s an honor. San Sebastian is one of the cities where the cinema is celebrated with enormous enthusiasm. More than ever, at these times, we need the complicity of the spectators, and their presence in the film theatres. It is a dream to attend a festival like this, where the cinemas are always full.”

Last year, the Lifetime Achievement Award was handed to Javier Bardem. Other previous filmmakers to have received the Donostia Award include Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, Oliver Stone, Agnès Varda, Hirokazu Koreeda and Costa-Gavras.

Javier Bardem to Receive Donostia Award at San Sebastian Film Festival

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Javier Bardem will be feted in Northern Spain…

The San Sebastian Film Festival will honor the 54-year-old Spanish Oscar-winning actor with its prestigious Donostia Award at its 71st edition, running September 22 — 30.

Javier BardemBardem will receive the career achievement prize on Friday, September 22 at the Kursaal Auditorium, 30 years after his first visit to the Festival for the competition screening of Bigas Luna’s film Golden Balls in 1993.

An image of Bardem will also serve as the official poster of this year’s festival.

Bardem is one of Spain’s most prominent cinematic names, with over 70 screen credits. He picked up an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and a BAFTA for his turn in the Coen Brothers’ neo-western No Country for Old Men.

Bardem was last at San Sebastian in 2021 with the workplace comedy-drama The Good Boss from Fernando León de Aranoa. The film was Spain’s submission for the international Oscar race.

Later this year, Bardem returns for the second film in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune series, where he plays the character Stilgar alongside Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya.

Last year, the lifetime achievement award was handed to David Cronenberg and Juliette Binoche. Other previous filmmakers to have received the Donostia Award include Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, Oliver Stone, Agnès Varda, Hirokazu Koreeda, and Costa-Gavras.

Colombian filmmaker Laura Mora clinched the Golden Shell in the main competition at last year’s San Sebastian Film Festival with her latest feature The Kings of the World (Los reyes del mundo).

Penelope Cruz Receives Donostia Award at San Sebastian Film Festival

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Penelope Cruzis being heralded in her home country…

The 45-year-old Oscar-winning Spanish actress has received San Sebastian Film Festival‘s biggest honor, the Donostia Award.

Penelope Cruz

Cruz was given the prize — which had been announced in May — over the weekend during a gala ceremony in a surprise presentation by her close friend, U2lead singerBono, who praised Cruz for her film roles and her off-screen concern for humanity.

“Penélope’s life on the screen fascinates me because it is a family drama,” he said. “Artists like us, like me, get lost in our own selves. Penelope gets lost in others. That’s why we get lost in her.” 

Upon accepting the award, Cruz spoke out against domestic violence against women in Spain and around the world.

“So far this year, 44 women have been murdered by gender-based violence in our country, and since 2003 more than a thousand. How many women are being murdered around the world?”, she asked. “I hope that when a woman finds the superhuman strength she needs to tell what she is going through in such a situation, she will be heard at first and not when it is too late.”

Cruz dedicated the award to her parents, her children and husband, fellow actor Javier Bardem, and three directors she has worked with: Pedro Almodóvar, Bigas Lunaand Fernando Trueba.

Cruz is the youngest actress to receive the Donostia prize, three of which are awarded each year.

Greek director Costa-Gavrasand Canadian actor Donald Sutherlandwere named winners of the honor earlier in the week at the festival in the northern Spanish seaside resort town. Cruz won the best actress Oscar in 2008 for her role in Woody Allen‘s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, becoming the first Spanish actress to win an Academy Award.

del Toro Accepts Lifetime Achievement Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival

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Benicio del Toro is a film don(ostia)…

The 48-year-old Puerto Rican actor accepted the Donostia Award for lifetime achievement at the San Sebastian International Film Festival on Friday.

Benicio del Toro

In his acceptance speech, del Toro paid homage to his native Puerto Rico.

“I want to dedicate this award to the piece of land where I come from, where I was born, where I learned to throw rocks and had them first thrown at me,” del Toro said at the award ceremony. “Where I learned to take risks and where I learned not to do things just to do them.”

Cuban actor-director Jorge Perugorria introduced the Oscar-winning actor as a “rebel of the profession [of acting],” just before del Toro thanked the festival.

Del Toro received the award before the screening of his latest project, Andrea DiStefano‘s Escobar: Paradise Lost in the festival’s Pearls Selection.

Earlier in the day, he spoke to journalists about how he respected the actors and actresses who came before him, how Steven Soderbergh‘s Che was his most “complicated” role and how not to be thin-skinned in Hollywood.

“An actor has to have a short memory. There’s a lot of rejection, and you can’t wallow in it. You have to have a short memory,” del Toro said.

But del Toro proved to have a long memory when he told an anecdote about seeing a picture of a haggard fisherman and upon asking what had happened to him was told, “the effort.”

“I look at this prize and I answer the same to myself — the effort,” he said.

del Toro to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at San Sebastian International Film Festival

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Benicio del Toro is about to add another award to his collection…

The 48-year-old Puerto Rican actor and film producer and Oscar-winner will receive the Donostia Award for Lifetime Achievement at the San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Benicio del Toro III

del Toro’s latest film Escobar: Paradise Lostwill close the Pearls Selection at the festival, which runs September 19-27.

Escobar, written by Andrea di Stefano, tells the story of young surfer Nick who thinks he has landed in paradise when he falls in love with a Colombian girl on a visit to see his brother who is living in the South American country only to have it change when he meets her uncle, Pablo Escobar.

del Toro has confirmed that he’ll come to San Sebastian to present the film and receive the Donostia at the closing ceremony. Di Stefano, Josh Hutcherson and Carlos Bardem will also be present for the film’s Spanish premiere.

del Toro is a favorite at San Sebastian where he has accompanied films from his career.

del Toro won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic as well as an Oscar nomination for his work in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s 21 Grams.

del Toro re-teamed with Soderbergh to star in the biography of Che Guevera Che. The performance won him the Best Actor award at the Palme D’Or Closing Ceremony at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008, and again the following year at the Goya Awards in Madrid, Spain.

He starred opposite Emily Blunt and Anthony Hopkins in Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman and as Lado in Oliver Stone’s Savages.

del Toro was starred as Jimmy, the lead in Jimmy P. The film was screened at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. He was last seen in Guardians of the Galaxy a sci-fi action film for Walt Disney Pictures/Marvel Enterprises, which was released in the beginning of August 2014.

Next year he’ll play Mambru in Fernando Leon’s A Perfect Day and Sauncho Smilax in Inherent Vice, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

The actor is currently in production on Denis Villeneuve’s Sicaro.