It’s the time of year when film festivals (some more legit than others) are making plans to reward some of the year’s best performances in one way or another. AFI announced yesterday that Annette Benning will join Isabelle Huppert as the second individual tribute at AFI FEST next month. Today, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival revealed their 2017 Virtuosos Award winners which will be handed out during a ceremony on February 4, 2017 at the Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara.
Presented to actors with “breakthrough” performances in 2016, this year’s crop of honorees include Aaron Taylor Johnson (“Nocturnal Animals”), Dev Patel (“Lion”), Janelle Monáe (“Hidden Figures,” “Moonlight”), Mahershala Ali (“Moonlight”), Naomie Harris (“Moonlight”), Ruth Negga (“Loving”), Simon Helberg (“Florence Foster Jenkins”), and Stephen Henderson (“Fences”).
Some of these names seem dubious as “breakthrough” winners (Dev Patel and Aaron Taylor Johnson are pretty established) and its hard to see more than half of them earning Oscar nominations, even if their films do (which means doing another awards season event may be the last thing they have any interest in doing). That being said, SBIFF is a nice spotlight for Academy members in the Santa Barbara area, and if you’re no longer campaigning this year you’re certainly able to leave a positive impression for the next time around.
Expect more award winners to be announced by SBIFF in the weeks to come.
The 32nd edition of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival runs February 1 to February 11, 2017.
Editor-at-Large Gregory Ellwood is one of the entertainment industry's most respected journalists and critics. Based in Los Angeles, he's the only current awards expert who previously worked on Oscar campaigns at a major movie studio. Over the years, he has written for the LA Times, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Vox, among others. He also co-founded the entertainment news site HitFix, which spawned a legion of influential Emmy and WGA Award-winning alumni.
