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.

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