Thursday, November 12, 2015

Keaton, Ruffalo And McAdams To Be Awarded



Santa Barbara, CA – The Santa Barbara International Film Festival announced today that Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams will be honored with the 2016 American Riviera Award at the 31st edition of the Fest, which runs from February 3 to February 13, 2016.  This is the first time the award will be given to three honorees, who will be fêted with a Tribute celebrating their careers, culminating with their powerhouse collaboration in Tom McCarthy’s blisteringly true drama “Spotlight.”  The film recently opened to critical acclaim.  The Tribute will take place during the festival’s run at the historic Arlington Theatre.   

The American Riviera Award was established to recognize actors who have made a significant contribution to American Cinema.  Keaton, Ruffalo and McAdams will join a prestigious group of past recipients, including last year’s honorees Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke (2015), Robert Redford (2014), Quentin Tarantino (2013) and Martin Scorsese (2012), Annette Bening (2011), Sandra Bullock (2010), Mickey Rourke (2009), Tommy Lee Jones (2008), Forrest Whitaker (2007), Philip Seymour Hoffman (2006), Kevin Bacon (2005) and Diane Lane (2004).

“Michael, Mark and Rachel are three of the finest actors in the business.” stated Festival Director Roger Durling, “They are artists in the truest sense of the word who continue to surprise and inspire audiences with their talent,” adding, “their recent turn in Spotlight demonstrates their skills both harmoniously as an ensemble and individually, it is an honor to celebrate their work with the American Riviera Award.” 

Spotlight tells the astonishing story of the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Spotlight” team of investigative journalists, who in 2002 shocked the city and the world by exposing the Catholic Church’s systematic cover-up of widespread pedophilia perpetrated by more than 70 local priests.

The 31st annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival will take place from Wednesday, February 3rd through Saturday, February 13th.

For more information, please visit www.sbiff.org.

About the Santa Barbara International Film Festival
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts and educational organization dedicated to discovering and showcasing the best in independent and international cinema. SBIFF offers 11 days of 200+ films, tributes and symposiums that transforms beautiful downtown Santa Barbara, CA into a rich destination for film lovers which attract more than 90,000 attendees.

SBIFF continues its commitment to education and the community through free programs like its 10-10-10 Student Filmmaking and Screenwriting Competitions, Mike’s Field Trip to the Movies, National Film Studies Program, AppleBox Family Films, 3rdWeekend and educational seminars. In recent years SBIFF has expanded its year round presence with regular screenings and Q&As with programs like Cinema Society, The Showcase and its Wave Film Festivals.

About Mark Ruffalo
Mark Ruffalo is one of Hollywood’s most sought-after actors, easily moving between stage and screen and working with top directors such as Ang Lee, Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, Spike Jonze, David Fincher, Fernando Meirelles and Michel Gondry. Ruffalo received Academy Award®, Golden Globe Award®, BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild nominations (Best Supporting Actor) for his role as the late Olympic wrestler David Schultz in Foxcatcher, the true story of John du Pont, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. The film also received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture – Drama.

Ruffalo has wrapped production on Now You See Me: The Second Act, the sequel to the hit Now You See Me. He reprises his role as Dylan Rhodes opposite Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco and Jesse Eisenberg as well as new cast members Daniel Radcliffe and Lizzy Caplan. The film is set for release in 2016. 

Ruffalo recently reprised his role as Bruce Banner/The Hulk in Avengers: Age of Ultron, the hit sequel to The Avengers. Directed by Joss Whedon, the film also brought back co-stars Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. He will next be seen in Infinitely Polar Bear, opposite Zoe Saldana. The film is about a bipolar husband and father (played by Ruffalo) who goes off his medication and then proceeds to lose both his job and sanity, while struggling to hold onto his marriage. The film made its debut at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. 

Ruffalo received Golden Globe, Emmy Award and Screen Actors Guild nominations for his role as gay activist Ned Weeks in the HBO telefilm “The Normal Heart,” based on the play of the same name written by Larry Kramer. Directed by Ryan Murphy, the film also stars Julia Roberts and Matt Bomer. “The Normal Heart” tells the story of a gay activist attempting to raise HIV/AIDS awareness during the onset of the crisis in New York City in the 1980s. In addition to a Golden Globe nomination for Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television, the project received a total of 16 Emmy nominations including Outstanding Television Movie. 

He was also seen in Begin Again, which co-stars Keira Knightley and Hailee Steinfeld. Begin Again is a story about an aspiring female singer in New York City whose world takes a turn for the better when a down-on-his-luck record producer (Ruffalo) discovers her and the two forge a romance that turns each other’s lives around. The film premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, where the Weinstein Company purchased U.S. distribution rights.

Ruffalo earned nominations for an Oscar®, Screen Actors Guild Award, BAFTA Award and Independent Spirit Award for his performance in The Kids Are All Right, directed by Lisa Cholodenko. He was also honored with the New York Film Critics Circle’s Best Supporting Actor Award. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
In 2011 Ruffalo made his directorial debut with Sympathy for Delicious, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to win the Special Jury Prize for dramatic film. The film starred Orlando Bloom and Laura Linney. He also co-wrote the screenplay for the independent film The Destiny of Marty Fine.

Ruffalo first earned critical recognition in 2000 for his role in Kenneth Lonergan’s You Can Count on Me, with Laura Linney and Matthew Broderick. At the 2000 Sundance Film Festival the Martin Scorsese-produced film won the coveted Grand Jury Prize for the best film in dramatic competition, as well as the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.
Other film credits include Thanks for Sharing, Now You See Me, Shutter Island, We Don’t Live Here Anymore, Zodiac, The Brothers Bloom, Collateral, 13 Going on 30, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, In the Cut, Margaret, Blindness, Just Like Heaven, Reservation Road, All the King’s Men, What Doesn’t Kill You, My Life Without Me, The Last Castle, Windtalkers,XX/XY, Committed, Ride with the Devil, Studio 54, Safe Men, The Last Big Thing, Fish in the Bathtub and Life/Drawing.  

Ruffalo’s acting roots lie in the theater, where he first gained attention starring in the Off Broadway production of “This is Our Youth” (winning a Lucille Award for Best Actor). He has also won awards for other stage performances, including a Drama-Logue Award and the Theater World Award. In 2006 Ruffalo earned a Tony Award® nomination for his Broadway debut in the Lincoln Center Theater’s revival of Clifford Odets’ “Awake and Sing!” 

He made his theater debut in “Avenue A” at The Cast Theater. In 2000 Ruffalo was seen in the Off Broadway production “The Moment When,” a play by Pulitzer Prize and Tony-winner James Lapine. That same year, he directed Timothy McNeil’s original play “Margaret” at the Hudson Backstage Theatre in Los Angeles.

Ruffalo advocates for addressing climate change and increasing renewable energy. In 2011 he co-founded Water Defense with the mission to raise awareness about energy extraction’s impact on water and the public health. Ruffalo helped launch The Solutions Project in 2012 as part of his plan to share science, business and culture that demonstrate the feasibility of renewable energy.

In partnership with The Solutions Project, Ruffalo recently teamed up with racecar driver and environmental activist Leilani Münter to promote their initiative “50 Plans for 50 States.” The plan is a roadmap to take the U.S. to 100% clean energy and hopes for a transition from traditional fuel-burning energies to alternatives such as wind, water and solar power in each state.

A regular contributor to the Guardian and Huffington Post, the actor has received the Global Green Millennium Award for Environmental Leadership and the Meera Gandhi Giving Back Foundation Award. He was named one of Time magazine’s “People Who Mattered” in 2011 and two years later he received The Big Fish Award from clean water advocate Riverkeeper.

Ruffalo currently resides with his family in New York.

About Michael Keaton
Michael Keaton was the star of the 2015 Best Picture winner Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Innocence), garnering critical and public acclaim for his role as Riggan, a once celebrated, now washed-up actor battling to regain his ego and career by mounting a Broadway play. Keaton was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Golden Globe, Independent Spirit and National Board of Review awards for Best Actor. He received many other nominations and honors including a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble Cast.

Keaton recently completed work on John Lee Hancock’s biopic The Founder, in which he portrays the founder of the McDonald’s fast food chain, Ray Kroc. The film co-stars Linda Cardellini, Patrick Wilson and Nick Offerman.

Keaton first achieved national attention with the hit comedy Night Shift, followed by starring roles in such popular films as Mr. MomJohnny Dangerously and Dream Team
In 1998 Keaton earned the Best Actor Award from the National Society of Film Critics for his performances in Clean and Soberand Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice. He re-teamed with Burton to play the title role in the blockbusters Batman and Batman Returns.
Keaton also starred in HBO’s highly regarded true-life drama “Live from Baghdad,” which landed him a Golden Globe nomination for his role as intrepid CNN reporter Robert Wiener. He also starred in the supernatural thriller White Noise and indie drama Game Six, which premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. 
Keaton is a member of the nonprofit conservation organization American Rivers. 

About Rachel McAdams
Rachel McAdams has delivered a series of transformative performances that have established her as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after and respected actors. She recently starred in the second season of Nic Pizzolatto’s “True Detective.” McAdams plays Ani Bezzerides, a Ventura County Sheriff’s Department detective whose uncompromising ethics put her at odds with others and the system she serves. She stars alongside Colin Farrell, Taylor Kitsch and Vince Vaughn. The series premiered on June 21, 2015, on HBO.

On the big screen, McAdams can be seen starring alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Forest Whitaker in Antoine Fuqua’s boxing drama Southpaw. The story centers around a fighter (Gyllenhaal) trying to recapture lost glory and reconnect with a love he lost (McAdams). The Weinstein Company released the film on July 24, 2015.

She then shot Wim Wenders’ Everything Will Be Fine, alongside James Franco, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Robert Naylor. The film concerns a writer named Tomas (Franco) who accidentally causes the death of a child while driving and spends the next 12 years examining the effect of the tragedy on his life and on Kate, the child’s mother (Gainsbourg). The film premiered at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival. 

McAdams was last seen in Cameron Crowe’s Aloha, opposite Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone. The romantic comedy centers on a defense contractor who falls for an Air Force pilot after he is assigned to oversee the launch of a weapons satellite from Hawaii.  Sony Pictures released the film on May 20, 2015.  

Previously, McAdams starred in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, sharing in a SAG nomination for Outstanding Performance By a Cast in a Motion Picture alongside co-stars Owen Wilson, Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody, Marion Cotillard, Carla Bruni and Corey Stoll. The film also earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Screenplay. That same year, McAdams reprised her role as Irene Adler in Sherlock Homes: A Game of Shadows, opposite Robert Downey Jr.

Additional film credits include Anton Corbijn’s A Most Wanted Man, opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright and Willem Dafoe; Michael Sucsy’s The Vow, opposite Channing Tatum; Richard Curtis’ About Time, with Domhnall Gleeson and Bill Nighy; Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder, alongside Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko; Brian De Palma’s Passion, with Noomi Rapace; Roger Michell’s Morning Glory, co-starring Diane Keaton and Harrison Ford; Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, with Robert Downey Jr.; The Time Traveler’s Wife, opposite Eric Bana; The Family Stone, alongside Diane Keaton and Sarah Jessica Parker; Wes Craven’s Red Eye, opposite Cillian Murphy; Wedding Crashers, with Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn and Christopher Walken; Nick Cassavetes’ The Notebook, opposite Ryan Gosling; and Mean Girls, with Tina Fey and Lindsay Lohan.

In 2005 McAdams received ShoWest’s Supporting Actress of the Year Award as well as the Breakthrough Actress of the Year at the Hollywood Film Awards. In 2009 she was ShoWest’s Female Star of the Year.

McAdams was born and raised in a small town outside of London, Ontario. Involved with theater growing up, she went on to graduate with honors and a B.F.A. degree in theater from York University.

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