Five-time Academy Award-nominated actress Annette Bening will be honored with the inaugural Arlington Award at the 39th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Bening will receive the award on Friday, February 16, at an in-person conversation about her career leading up to her acclaimed performance in this year’s Nyad, directed by Oscar winners Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin.
“This is the first award added to our slate in twenty years,” said Santa Barbara International Film Festival executive director Roger Durling. “It is made to honor an artist who is greatly admired and who has demonstrated an incomparable commitment to film and its craft. Ms. Bening has not only displayed all of those qualities, but is considered by us to be a friend of the film festival. It feels fitting that this award–named after the home of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival–is first given to her.”
Bening is a celebrated actress across stage and screen who recently received her fifth Best Actress Oscar nomination on the strength of her performance in Nyad. Bening also received nominations for American Beauty, The Grifters, The Kids Are All Right and Being Julia, milestones in an impressive 35 year film career that also includes such notable classics as Bugsy, 20th Century Women and The American President.
On stage, Bening was last seen on Broadway in Jack O’Brien’s 2019 revival of Arthur Miller’s classic "All My Sons" alongside Tracy Letts, for which she earned a Tony Award nomination. Bening received a Tony Award nomination and won the Clarence Derwent Award for Outstanding Debut Performance of the Season for her 1987 Broadway debut in "Coastal Disturbances."
The 39th Santa Barbara International Film Festival will take place live from February 7-17. Official events including screenings, filmmaker Q&As, industry panels, and celebrity tributes, will be held throughout the city, including at the historic Arlington Theatre.
The 39th festival will open with the world premiere of Disney’s Madu and it will close with the world premiere of Chosen Family directed by Heather Graham and starring Julia Stiles, Graham, Andrea Savage and Thomas Lennon. The festival will debut 45 world premieres and 77 U.S. premieres from 48 countries.
