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SAN SEBASTIÁN 2019

Penélope Cruz is the face of the San Sebastián Film Festival and the recipient of the Donostia Award

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- The Madrilenian star will pick up the honorary prize at the upcoming edition of the Basque gathering; her face also graces the event’s official poster

Penélope Cruz is the face of the San Sebastián Film Festival and the recipient of the Donostia Award
Penélope Cruz at the 2017 San Sebastián Film Festival (© Gari Garaialde)

Last year it was French star Isabelle Huppert who graced the official poster of the San Sebastián International Film Festival, and now Madrid-born Penélope Cruz has been chosen for this particular honour for the 67th edition of the gathering, which will unspool from 20-28 September this year. In addition, Cruz will be handed the Donostia Award for her contribution to film, a prize that has previously been bestowed upon other high-profile and eminent Spanish actors, such as Carmen Maura, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Antonio Banderas and Paco Rabal.

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Upon receiving news of the honour, Penélope Cruz – who made her cinematic breakthrough in Jamón, jamón by the late Catalan genius Bigas Luna, won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2008 for her role as temperamental artist María Elena in the Spanish-US co-production Vicky Cristina Barcelona [+see also:
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, and was catapulted to international stardom thanks to her collaborations with Pedro Almodóvar (she also appears in Pain & Glory [+see also:
film review
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interview: Antonio Banderas
Q&A: Pedro Almodóvar
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, which is currently on general release in Spain and will soon be shown in competition at Cannes) – said: “I receive the news of this Donostia Award full of emotion and gratitude to the San Sebastián Festival for granting me this immense honour. San Sebastián is not only an internationally renowned festival, but also the most important in our country and a very special place for me because I have had the pleasure of visiting it since I was very young and have experienced very touching moments there. Thank you very much, from the bottom of my heart!”

Meanwhile, San Sebastián Film Festival director José Luis Rebordinos enthused: “We are delighted that Penélope Cruz, a marvellous actress whom we admire and whose footsteps we have also followed since the start of her career, has agreed to be the image of the San Sebastián Festival and to receive the Donostia Award.” Penélope paid her first visit to the gathering in 1994, when Álvaro Fernández Armero’s Todo es mentira was competing for the Golden Shell; the last time she attended was in 2017, when she brought the Pearls section to a close together with Javier Bardem, in Loving Pablo [+see also:
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 by Fernando León de Aranoa.

Cruz – an actress, director of shorts and medium-length films, and producer (The Queen of Spain [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Fernando Trueba
film profile
]
, Ma Ma [+see also:
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film profile
]
) – will perform in the upcoming film by Todd Solondz (called Love Child), flanked by Venezuela’s Edgar Ramírez, and in the forthcoming 355 by Brit Simon Kinberg, alongside Jessica Chastain and Lupita Nyong’o. She also acts in Wasp Network [+see also:
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interview: Olivier Assayas
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]
, helmed by Olivier Assayas, which has not yet been released. Some of the standout European works she has appeared in are Everybody Knows [+see also:
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trailer
film profile
]
(Spain/France/Italy) by Asghar FarhadiThe Counselor [+see also:
trailer
making of
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]
 (USA/UK) by Ridley ScottTo Rome with Love [+see also:
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interview: Woody Allen
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]
 (Spain/Italy/USA) by Woody AllenTwice Born [+see also:
trailer
interview: Sergio Castellitto
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]
 and Don’t Move, both helmed by Italy’s Sergio Castellitto, the French production Fanfan la Tulipe [+see also:
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film profile
]
 by Gérard KrawczykCaptain Corelli’s Mandolin (France/UK/USA) by John MaddenThe Hi-Lo Country (UK/USA/Germany) by Stephen FrearsDon Juan (Spain/France/Germany) by Jacques Weber and Head in the Clouds [+see also:
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film profile
]
 (UK/Canada) by John Duigan.

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(Translated from Spanish)

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