Zoe Saldaña to Receive American Riviera Award at 40th Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Zoe Saldaña will be honored with the American Riviera Award at the 40th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Saldaña will receive the award on Friday, February 7, 2025 at an in-person conversation about her career, leading up to her acclaimed performance this year as Rita Moro Castro in Netflix’s Emilia Pérez.

Saldaña can next be seen starring in the Spanish-language musical crime comedy from Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez, which premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and took home the Jury Prize. Saldaña received the festival’s prestigious Best Actress Award alongside the female ensemble and Netflix will release the film in theaters on November 1 and on Netflix November 13.

“Zoe Saldaña has a fantastic filmography worth celebrating any year, but her commanding and stouthearted performance in Emilia Pérez makes our tribute to her imperative” remarked SBIFF’s Executive Director Roger Durling.

The American Riviera Award was established to recognize actors who have made a significant contribution to American Cinema. Previous recipients include Mark Ruffalo, Brendan Fraser, Kristen Stewart, Delroy Lindo, Renée Zellweger, Viggo Mortenson, Sam Rockwell, Jeff Bridges, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Robert Redford, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Annette Bening, Sandra Bullock, Mickey Rourke, Tommy Lee Jones, Forrest Whitaker, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kevin Bacon and Diane Lane.

The 40th Santa Barbara International Film Festival will take place live February 4 – February 15, 2025. Official events including screenings, filmmaker Q&As, industry panels, and celebrity tributes, will be held throughout the city, including at the historic Arlington Theatre.

Last year, the festival had a program of 200+ films from over 48 countries with honorary awards feted on Robert Downey Jr., Bradley Cooper, Paul Giamatti, Jeffrey Wright, America Ferrera, Lily Gladstone, Greta Lee, Charles Melton, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Andrew Scott, Martin Scorsese, Justine Triet, Billie Eilish, and Ludwig Göransson.

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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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