Riz Ahmed (‘Sound of Metal’) to receive inaugural Impact Award from Miami Film Festival

Miami Dade College’s renowned Miami Film Festival today announced that Sound of Metal star Riz Ahmed will receive the Festival’s inaugural Impact Award. The award tribute and conversation moderated by Variety’s Film Awards Editor Clayton Davis will take place on March 6, 2021. The 38^th annual Festival will be a held from March 5-14, 2021 as a hybrid event, with both virtual and in-theater presentations. 

“We are excited to recognize Riz Ahmed as the first recipient of the Miami Film Festival’s Impact Award,” said Miami Film Festival Executive Director Jaie Laplante. “We selected Riz for this distinguished honor for his incisive, brilliant performance in Sound of Metal and what it has meant for the Recovery community within the Deaf community, which is often invisible in our society.” 

Riz Ahmed stars in Amazon Studios film Sound of Metal.  In the film, metal drummer Ruben begins to lose his hearing. When a doctor tells him his condition will worsen, he thinks his career and life is over. His girlfriend Lou checks the former addict into a rehab for the deaf hoping it will prevent a relapse and help him adapt to his new life. After being welcomed and accepted just as he is, Ruben must choose between his new normal and the life he once knew.  The film was directed by Darius Marder and also stars Olivia Cooke and Paul Raci. For his performance in the film, Ahmed has received numerous Best Actor accolades from critics and film organizations including the National Board of Review, Gotham Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, London Critics’ Circle Film Awards, New York Film Critics Online, Boston Society of Film Critics Awards, and San Diego Film Critics Society, among others. 

Emmy award winner Riz Ahmed is a critically acclaimed actor, writer, creator, producer, musician, director, and activist. He became one of Hollywood’s most sought after artists following HBO’s The Night Of, for which he won an Emmy Award, and was Golden Globe and SAG nominated. His feature film credits include Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, The Sisters Brothers, Venom, Four Lions, Nightcrawler, and Mogul Mowgli. Up next, he stars in Amazon Studios’ Invasion and he is set to star in and executive produce the Exit West, being developed by Netflix and in collaboration with the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions, and Ahmed’s production company Left Handed Films. It was recently announced that Left Handed Films inked a first-look deal covering television with Amazon Studios and has hired former AMC exec Allie Moore to oversee production and development. The banner has several projects on the horizon including Mogul Mowgli, a film co-written, starring and produced by Ahmed that premiered at the Berlin Film Festival where it won the Fipresci International Critics’ Prize and is currently nominated for six BIFA Awards including best screenplay, best actor, best music, best debut screenwriter, best cinematography and best sound. Strand will release the drama in the U.S. this year. Further out is a modern take on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which Ahmed will also star. 

Ahmed’s musical journey has spanned two decades across battle rap, techno, artistic residencies, a successful American band Swet Shop Boys, and most recently, his critically acclaimed 2020 release “The Long Goodbye.” Its nine tracks are a breakup album like no other – these songs are about being dumped by the country you call home.  Ahmed draws from hip-hop as well as the South Asian qawali tradition, to mix rap, melody, and spoken word. 

Ahmed joins this year’s previously announced honoree actor Javier Cámara, who will receive the Festival’s Precious Gem Award. The festival will announce the complete line-up and additional honorees on February 3.  For more information on the festival, visit miamifilmfestival.com.

Image courtesy of Amazon Studios

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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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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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