Benicio del Toro to receive the Donostia Award at the 62nd edition of the San Sebastian Festival
The actor will play the leading part in "Escobar: Paradise Lost", closing film of the Pearls section
09-02-2014
Escobar: Paradise Lost, a Chapter 2 and Roxbury production, internationally marketed by Pathé International and distributed in the United States by Radius/TWC, will close the Pearls section of the 62nd San Sebastian Festival.
Written and directed by Andrea di Stefano, the film stars Academy Award-winner Benicio del Toro as Pablo Escobar,
Josh Hutcherson (Hunger Games), Claudia Traisac and Carlos Bardem.
The star of Escobar: Paradise Lost is young surfer Nick thinks all his dreams have come true when he goes to visit his brother in Colombia. Against an idyllic backdrop of blue lagoons and white beaches he falls madly in love with a beautiful Colombian girl called Maria. It all seems perfect until he meets her uncle, one Pablo Escobar...
Benicio del Toro has confirmed that he will come to San Sebastian to present the film and receive the Donostia Award for his whole career.
Josh Hutcherson, Andrea Di Stefano and Carlos Bardem will also attend the Festival.
Benicio del Toro has earned critical accolades throughout his career, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in
Steven Soderbergh's Traffic as well as an Oscar nomination for his work in Alejandro González Iñarritu's 21 Grams. Del Toro re-teamed with Soderbergh to star in the biography of Che Guevara Che. The performance won him the Best Actor award at the Palme D'Or Closing ceremony at Cannes in 2008, and again the following year at the Goya Awards in Madrid, Spain. Benicio starred opposite
Emily Blunt and
Anthony Hopkins in Joe Johnston's The Wolfman and as Lado in
Oliver Stone's Savages. Benicio was also seen as Jimmy, the lead in
JIMMY P. The film was screened at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. He was last seen in
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY a Sci-Fi action film for Walt
Disney Pictures/Marvel Enterprises which was released in the beginning of August 2014. He plays Pablo Escobar in Escobar: Paradise Lost, and next year he will play Mambru in Fernando Leon's A Perfect Day and Sauncho Smilax in Inherent Vice, directed by Paul
Thomas Anderson. Benicio is currently in production on Denis Villeneuve's Sicario.
Del Toro's previous works include the film adaptation of
Frank Miller's graphic novel Sin City, directed by
Robert Rodriguez, Peter Weir's Fearless, George Huang's Swimming with Sharks, Abel Ferrara's The Funeral , Guy Ritchie's Snatch,
Sean Penn's The Indian Runner and The Pledge, Christopher McQuarrie's The Way of the Gun,
William Friedkin's The Hunted, Susanne Bier's Things We Lost in the Fire, starring opposite
Halle Berry, and as Dr. Gonzo in
Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Del Toro made his motion picture debut in John Glen's License to Kill opposite
Timothy Dalton's
James Bond and has earned critical acclaim for his performances ever since. In addition to winning an Academy Award® for Best Supporting Actor in
Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, his performance also garnered a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award and BAFTA Awards, the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival for Traffic, as well as citations from the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Society of Film Critics, and the Chicago Film Critics Association. His work in 21 Grams also earned Del Toro the Audience Award for Best Actor at the 2003 Venice International Film Festival. He earned Independent Spirit Awards for his performances as Fred Fenster in
Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects and as Benny Dalmau in
Julian Schnabel's Basquiat.
Born in Puerto Rico, Del Toro grew up in Pennsylvania. He attended the University of California at San Diego, where he appeared in numerous student productions, one of which led to his performing at a drama festival at the Lafayette Theater in New York. Del Toro studied at the
Stella Adler Conservatory under the tutelage of Arthur Mendoza.
Source
Photo source: Sansebastianfetival.com
