Actor Angela Bassett will be honored with the Montecito Award at the 38th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF). Bassett will receive the award Feb. 9 during an in-person conversation about her career leading up to this year’s performance in Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” directed by Ryan Coogler from Disney Studios.
“Ms. Bassett has had an illustrious career as an actor, director and producer, and in ‘Wakanda Forever’ reminds us why she’s so greatly revered. She’s regal, fierce and commanding as Queen Ramonda. We bow down.” said Roger Durling, SBIFF executive director.
Bassett is an actor, director, and executive producer known for emotionally tinged performances full of dignity in such films as “Malcolm X,” “Boyz in the Hood,” “Waiting to Exhale,” “How Stella Got Her Groove Back,” and “What’s Love Got to do With It,” for which she received an Academy Award nomination.
She has since made star-turns in the historic “Black Panther,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Fallout,” “Bumblebee” from Paramount, as well as the TV hits “9-1-1” and “Master of None.”
Other recent projects include Disney and Pixar’s Academy Award-winning animated feature “Soul,” for which Bassett lent her melodious voice for the character Dorothea Williams; feature films “Otherhood” and “Gunpowder Milkshake” from Netflix; and “The Flood” from National Geographic, for which she received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Narrator.
Further, Bassett was nominated for two Emmys, including Outstanding Narrator for the “Imagineering Story: The Happiest Place on Earth,” and Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for “A Black Lady Sketch Show.” She recently wrapped production on the Netflix Originals feature film “Damsel,” opposite Millie Bobby Brown.
The Montecito Award is named after one of the most beautiful and stylish areas in Santa Barbara. Past recipients include Penélope Cruz, Amanda Seyfried, Lupita Nyong’o, Melissa McCarthy, Saoirse Ronan, Isabelle Huppert, Sylvester Stallone, Jennifer Aniston, Oprah Winfrey, Daniel Day-Lewis, Geoffrey Rush, Julianne Moore, Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts and Javier Bardem.
The 38th Santa Barbara International Film Festival will take place live Feb. 8-18. Official events including screenings, filmmaker Q&As, industry panels, and celebrity tributes, will be held throughout the city, including at the historic Arlington Theatre. Passes and tickets for the 2023 Festival are on sale now at sbiff.org.
The SBIFF film lineup and schedule will be announced in January.