Actress and producer Naomi Watts will receive the Donostia Award at the 74th San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain, organisers announced on Monday.
Watts will accept the honour on September 19 during a gala ceremony in the northern Spanish city. Following the award presentation, the festival will screen the drama The Housewife, directed by Canadian filmmaker Ben Shirinian, which stars Watts in the lead role.
The San Sebastian International Film Festival, held annually in Spain's Basque Country, is one of Europe's major film events. Its Donostia Award, named after the Basque word for San Sebastian, recognizes lifetime achievement in cinema. The 74th edition of the festival will take place from September 18 to September 26.
Organisers had previously announced on August 7 that the first Donostia Award of this year's festival will be presented to German director, screenwriter, producer and actor Werner Herzog.
Academy Award nominations and career milestones
Watts, who was born in the United Kingdom and raised in Australia, has forged a career combining independent art-house films with major studio productions across film and television. She is a two-time Academy Award nominee for Best Actress, earning her first nod for her role in the 2003 drama 21 Grams, directed by Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu. Starring alongside Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro, she earned BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for the performance.
Her second Oscar nomination for Best Actress came for the 2012 drama The Impossible, directed by Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona. Her performance as a tsunami survivor brought her a Golden Globe nomination, a Screen Actors Guild nomination, a Critics' Choice nomination and international accolades.
Watts achieved her international breakthrough in David Lynch's 2001 film Mulholland Drive. Her performance won Best Actress awards from the National Board of Review and the National Society of Film Critics, as well as multiple critics' associations worldwide.
She also earned a Screen Actors Guild nomination for St. Vincent, in which she starred alongside Bill Murray, and appeared in Iñárritu's Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), which won the Oscar for Best Picture. Over her career, Watts has worked with directors including Peter Jackson, David Cronenberg, Clint Eastwood, Michael Haneke, Audrey Diwan, Noah Baumbach and Rodrigo Garcia.
The upcoming ceremony marks a return to San Sebastian for Watts. In 2009, she attended the festival with Rodrigo Garcia to close the Official Selection out of competition with their film Mother & Child.
Television roles and new feature film
In television, Watts has starred in leading roles in the Netflix series The Watcher, the Showtime miniseries The Loudest Voice, in which she played Gretchen Carlson opposite Russell Crowe, and Lynch's revival series Twin Peaks: The Return. She also starred in and executive produced the Netflix series Gypsy, and made a guest appearance in the animated series BoJack Horseman.
Her latest film, The Housewife, features a cast that includes Tye Sheridan, Luke Evans, Michael Imperioli and Lena Olin. Set in 1964 and based on a true story, the film follows a young journalist who discovers a former Nazi living hidden in New York and forms a friendship with the suspect's wife.
The project represents the feature film directorial debut for Ben Shirinian. The Canadian director previously created short films including Lost in Motion in 2012, Lost in Motion 2 in 2013 and Josef et Aimee in 2015.
