SBIFF / festival 2008 / programs / TRIBUTES

CATE BLANCHETT modern master award

Academy Award winning actress Cate Blanchett has been selected to receive the 2008 Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s Modern Master Award on Saturday, January 26, 2008.

Blanchett is one of the most gifted performers working today. She possesses an innate intelligence and ability to adapt completely to her characters, making her one of Hollywood’s most respected and revered talents. She developed her talent at a young age, working extensively in theater in her native Australia. She achieved international acclaim in 1998 with her stunning performance as a young Elizabeth I in Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth, which earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, a BAFTA Award for Lead Actress, a Screen Actors Guild Awards nomination and an Oscar nomination. Blanchett returns this year in Kapur’s sequel Elizabeth: The Golden Age, that focuses on the late 16th Century when Queen Elizabeth is faced with political and personal conflict: the threat from Spain to invade her country and the reality that she may never find true love, remaining the Virgin Queen forever. (read more...)

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ANGELINA JOLIE outstanding performance of the year

Academy Award® and three-time Golden Globe winner Angelina Jolie will be honored on Saturday, February 2, 2008 at the 23rd annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival with the Outstanding Performance of the Year Award for her critically acclaimed performance in A Mighty Heart. Past recipients include Kate Winslet, Heath Ledger and Helen Mirren for her performance in The Queen.

Based on the bestselling book by Mariane Pearl and featuring a career best performance by Jolie A Mighty Heart was described by Newsweek as “a movie without melodrama or movie-star lighting…allowing Jolie to deliver the most delicate, powerful and human-scale performance of her career.” Jolie’s performance was widely touted by top critics as her finest artistic achievement to date. “We are honored to celebrate Ms. Jolie in what is arguably one of the most extraordinary female roles of the year,” commented Durling. (read more...)

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JAVIER BARDEM montecito award

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival will honor Javier Bardem at the 23rd edition of the Fest with the Montecito Award, which runs January 24-February 3, 2008.

Bardem, whose performance in No Country for Old  Men has already garnered him accolades, will be presented with the  Montecito Award on Monday, January 28, at the Lobero Theatre.  Bardem plays the chilling and offbeat villain Anton Chigurh who flips coins for human lives and leaves no witnesses behind.  “After a rising career in Europe  and in the U.S., Bardem is an amazing artist at the top of his game,” comments  Durling, “and his performance in No Country, in particular, is as  classic as Tony Perkins in Psycho and Anthony Hopkins in Silence  Of The Lambs.   (read more...)

TOMMY LEE JONES american riviera award

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival will honor Tommy Lee Jones with the American Riviera Award at the 23rd edition of the Fest, which runs January 24-February 3, 2008, it was announced today by SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling.

The American Riviera Award, an award the SBIFF established to recognize an actor who has had a strong influence on American Cinema, will be presented to Tommy Lee Jones on Friday, February 1, 2008. Previous recipients include Forest Whitaker and Philip Seymour Hoffman, both of whom went on to win Academy Awards.

Jones’ performances in the critically acclaimed film In the Valley of Elah by director Paul Haggis, and No Country for Old Men from Joel and Ethan Coen have both been applauded by critics and audiences alike this year. Elah, which also stars Charlize Theron, is about a career officer who investigates the disappearance of his son, an exemplary soldier who went AWOL after his recent return from Iraq. Jones also quietly shines in the Coen Brothers tale.

“To have the opportunity to honor an actor as accomplished as Tommy Lee Jones is wonderful for us, but to do it in a year when he has had two equally powerful performances—that makes this our honor,” said Durling.

  (read more...)