Spanish actor Javier Bardem will receive an honorary award at the 71st San Sebastian Film Festival in northern Spain, organizers announced Friday.
The Oscar-winning actor and best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival will “receive the highest honor” at the opening ceremony on September 22, festival organizers said in a statement.
Also, Javier Bardem, who first came to the San Sebastián festival 30 years ago to screen the movie “Macho”, will see his face on the “official poster” of the event’s 71st session. According to the organizers, Bardem will be the sixth Spanish actor to receive this honorary award, notably after Antonio Banderas in 2008, Carmen Moura in 2013 and his wife Penelope Cruz in 2019.
Born in the Canary Islands in 1969, Bardem is considered one of the most awarded Spanish actors of his generation, but he is also one of the most active actors, appearing in more than 50 films, mainly in Hollywood.
The actor, who has been married to Penelope Groth since 2010, won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for “No Country for Old Men” in 2008 and a Best Actor Award at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival for “Beautiful.”
In an interview with Agence France-Presse, Bardem confirmed in 2019 that he was “not getting projects” for film work in Spain because “people always think I live abroad, which is not true.”
He returned to presenting Spanish works, including the film “El Buen Hostal” directed by Fernando León de Arano, for which he won the “Goya” Award for Best Actor in February 2022.
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