39th Miami Film Festival To Honor Oscar Nominee Penélope Cruz With Precious Gem Icon Award
Written By Wilson Morales
Parallel Mothers star Penélope Cruz will receive Miami Dade College’s (MDC) acclaimed Miami Film Festival’s Precious Gem Icon Award, at its 39th edition. The 2022 Best Actress Academy Award nominee will participate in a virtual award tribute and conversation moderated by Variety’s Film Awards Editor Clayton Davis. The virtual presentation will take place as part of the Awards Ceremony program that includes the Closing Night Screening of Plaza Catedral on Saturday, March 12 at 7:00 pm at the Adrienne Arsht Center. The festival is scheduled from March 4-13, 2022.
“From the moment that Penélope Cruz first appeared on Miami Film Festival screens at our 10th edition in 1993 in her screen debut, Jamon Jamon, she has been a beloved favorite of our audience,” said Miami Film Festival executive director Jaie Laplante. “Over the nearly three decades that have followed, we have been enthralled to follow and screen so much of her extraordinary work, including her complex, overwhelmingly emotional performance in the Oscar-nominated Parallel Mothers.”
Miami Film Festival’s Precious Gem Award is the festival’s signature award, reserved for one-of-a-kind artists whose contributions to cinema are lasting and unforgettable. The Festival will also present its Precious Gem Awards to previously announced Oscar nominees Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) and Ramin Bahrani (The White Tiger, 2nd Chance). Last year’s Precious Gem recipients included Pedro Almodóvar and Rita Moreno.
Cruz stars in the Sony Pictures Classic film Parallel Mothers, written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Cruz has received numerous accolades for her performance including a Best Actress Academy Award nomination, Best Lead Actress Goya Award nomination and Best Actress honors from the National Society of Film Critics Awards, LA Film Critics Association Awards and the Venice Film Festival.
Penélope Cruz is an acclaimed film star and producer who has earned a diversity of honors. They include an Academy Award, Cannes Film Festival and Venice Film Festival Best Actress Awards, as well as those from the New York Film Critics, LA Film Critics, BAFTAs, Goya Awards, César Awards, European Film Awards and many others. In addition to numerous projects with director Pedro Almodóvar including Pain & Glory, Volver, Broken Embraces, Live Flesh and All About My Mother, her other films include Don’t Move, Loving Pablo, Murder on the Orient Express, The Queen of Spain, Ma Ma, Elegy, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Nine, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, To Rome with Love, All the Pretty Horses, Woman on Top, Open Your Eyes, Twice Born, Everybody Knows, Vanilla Sky, and Belle Epoque. Her U.S. television debut as Donatella Versace in FX’s “American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace” earned Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG award nominations.
