By Lindsey Bahr, AP Film Writer
"West Side Story's" Ariana DeBose, "Licorice Pizza's" Alana Haim and "Belfast's" Caitriona Balfe are among the actors who will receive the Santa Barbara International Film Festival's Virtuosos Award this year. Festival organizers plan to give out the honors at an in-person event in the coastal California town on March 5.
The eight actors singled out for the award include newcomers, like Saniyya Sidney who plays Venus Williams in "King Richard" and "CODA's" Emilia Jones and Troy Kotsur, as well as more familiar faces, like Simon Rex ("Red Rocket") and Jamie Dornan ("Belfast").
The event, hosted by TCM's Dave Karger, will include discussions with the talent — which could be for some a stop on the road to the Oscars on March 27. Karger said these honorees are, "integral parts of the season's most exciting and emotional films." Previous recipients have included Zendaya, Riz Ahmed and Awkwafina.
The long-running film festival, now in its 37th year, regularly attracts over 100,000 attendees to the idyllic town for films, panels and tributes. The full lineup for the early March gathering will be unveiled in February.
Organizers are planning for the 11-day event to be in-person come March 2, although COVID concerns have once again disrupted many early-year film and awards season events. Last week saw the cancellation of the Palm Springs International Film Festival, which was set to start this week, and the Sundance Film Festival announced this week that it would pivot to a virtual festival. Both the Academy's Governors Awards and the Critics Choice Awards were postponed from their mid-January dates as well.
Local school staple “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” from 1939 hits the big screen nationwide
Most Maine schoolchildren know about the boy lost for more than a week in 1939 after climbing the state's tallest mountain. Now the rest of the U.S. is getting in on the story.
Opening in 650 movie theaters on Friday, "Lost on a Mountain in Maine" tells the harrowing tale of 12-year-old Donn Fendler, who spent nine days on Mount Katahdin and the surrounding wilderness before being rescued. The gripping story of survival commanded the nation's attention in the days before World War II and the boy's grit earned an award from the president.
For decades, Fendler and Joseph B. Egan's book, published the same year as the rescue, has been required reading in many Maine classrooms, like third-grade teacher Kimberly Nielsen's.
"I love that the overarching theme is that Donn never gave up. He just never quits. He goes and goes," said Nielsen, a teacher at Crooked River Elementary School in Casco, who also read the book multiple times with her own kids.
Separated from his hiking group in bad weather atop Mount Katahdin, Fendler used techniques learned as a Boy Scout to survive. He made his way through the woods to the east branch of the Penobscot River, where he was found more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from where he started. Bruised and cut, starved and without pants or shoes, he survived nine days by eating berries and lost 15 pounds (7 kilograms).
The boy's peril sparked a massive search and was the focus of newspaper headlines and nightly radio broadcasts. Hundreds of volunteers streamed into the region to help.
The movie builds on the children's book, as told by Fendler to Egan, by drawing upon additional interviews and archival footage to reinforce the importance of family, faith and community during difficult times,... Read More