Lily Gladstone, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Greta Lee, Charles Melton to be Honored at Santa Barbara International Film Festival with Virtuoso Award

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is honored to announce the first group of recipients to receive the Virtuosos Award, an honor created to recognize a select group of talent whose noteworthy performances in films this season have elevated them into the national cinematic dialogue. Lily Gladstone, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Greta Lee, and Charles Melton will discuss their work and receive their awards in-person on Saturday, February 10 during the 39th Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The evening will be moderated for the 14th year by Turner Classic Movies host Dave Karger. The second group of Virtuosos Awards recipients will be announced next month by the festival.

“Our first four Virtuosos honorees are among the most interesting and exciting performers working today, and they all play unforgettable roles in some of the year’s best films. I’m so excited at the prospect of chatting with each of them in Santa Barbara in January” remarked Dave Karger.

The last four year’s Virtuosos honorees were Austin Butler, Kerry Condon, Danielle Deadwyler, Nina Hoss, Stephanie Hsu, Jeremy Pope, Ke Huy Quan, Jeremy Strong, Caitriona Balfe, Ariana DeBose, Jamie Dornan, Alana Haim, Ciarán Hinds, Emilia Jones, Troy Kotsur, Simon Rex, Saniyya Sidney, Riz Ahmed, Maria Bakalova, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Andra Day, Sidney Flanigan, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim, Zendaya, Awkwafina, Taron Egerton, Cynthia Erivo, Beanie Feldstein, Aldis Hodge, George MacKay, Florence Pugh, and Taylor Russell.

The 39th Santa Barbara International Film Festival will take place live February 7 – February 17, 2024. Official events including screenings, filmmaker Q&As, industry panels, and celebrity tributes, will be held throughout the city, including at the historic Arlington Theatre. Passes for the 2024 Festival are on sale now at sbiff.org.

Last year, the festival had 52 world premieres, 78 U.S. premieres, with honorary awards feted on Angela Bassett, Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Brendan Fraser, Austin Butler, Kerry Cordon, Danielle Deadwyler, Nina Hoss, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Jeremy Strong, Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Todd Field and Martin McDonagh.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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