Donald Sutherland to receive Donostia

San Sebastian also announces The Song Of Names will close festival

by Amber Wilkinson

Donald Sutherland will receive the Donostia Award on September 26
Donald Sutherland will receive the Donostia Award on September 26 Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival

Canadian star Donald Sutherland will be honoured with a Donostia Award for lifetime achievement at the San Sebastian Film Festival next month.

The festival has also announced it will close with The Song Of Names, a detective story spanning two continents and 50 years, directed by François Girard and starring Tim Roth and Clive Owen.

Sutherland, whose career spans more than 50 years and 200 productions, will receive his accolade on September 26, prior to a screening of Giuseppe Capotondi's thriller The Burnt Orange Heresy, which also features Mick Jagger and Elizabeth Debicki.

The 84-year-old, who received an Honorary Academy Award in 2017, was awarded Canada's highest honour, Companion of the Order of Canada, earlier this year. He carved out his early career mainly on the small screen, but made his film debut with The Castle Of The Living Dead (Il Castello Dei morti Vivi) in 1964. He went on to find success in The Dirty Dozen in 1967, followed by the film version of M.A.S.H and Kelly's Heroes in 1970 and a string of films in that decade, including Don't Look Now, Klute and Philip Kaufman's version of The Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.

His big screen success continued in the Eighties, with films including Ordinary People alongside Mary Tyler Moore, Revolution with Al Pacino and A Dry White Season with Marlon Brando. The Nineties brought roles including Mister X in JFK and thrillers including Disclosure, Outbreak and A Time To Kill and his Noughties films include Cold Mountain and Joe Wright's adaptation of Pride &Prejudice.

More recently, he has become known to a new generation of cinemagoers for his role as the evil President Snow in The Hunger Games young adult saga. In addition to The Burnt Orange Heresy - about an art dealer who becomes consumed with greed - he also appears this year in Ad Astra, which will premiere at Venice Film Festival and thriller American Hangman. He is also currently filming The Undoing, alongside Nicole Kidman in The Undoing, HBO’s six-episode limited series written by David E. Kelley and directed by Susanne Bier.

The 67th edition of the festival runs from September 20 to 28.

Share this with others on...
News

Framing a feature Michele Fiascaris on expanding his short Rain Catcher into a rain-slicked noir thriller

A heroine of the people Avid Liongoren on the Filipino animation industry and Zsazsa Zaturnnah

The girl who didn't want to be happy Julien Birban Levy on the spirit of Seoul and getting inside the head of Niko

Spirit of the art Takeru Shinozuka and Yoshihide Moriyama on animation and Foxing: Kitsuné-Tsuki

Colouring outside the lines Harrison Atkins on guerilla filmmaking, expanding options in cinema, and Sour Minnows

The yearning Corrin Evans, Lily Cowles, Jeff Wahlberg and Michael Vlamis on Corpus

More news and features

Interact

Don't forget that you can follow us on YouTube for trailers of festival films and more. You can also find us on Mastodon and Bluesky.


It's a busy time for festivals and here's the latest:


San Sebastian Leigh, Naishtat and Larraín among those joining line-up


Fantasia Nighborn is Cheval Noir Best Film; full list of award winners announced


Frightfest Full line-up announced


Sarajevo Festival to honour Asghar Farhadi and present tribute programme


Locarno Juries announced