As has become an annual post-New Year’s tradition, Darryl Macdonald and his Palm Springs Int’l Film Festival team tonight brought show-business’s biggest guns of 2012 to the desert.
Despite the seemingly less urgent nature of the festival’s big night, thanks to a shuffling of Oscar dates that saw nomination ballots close prior to the Gala for the first time in years, the field of honorees was as worthy of plaudits as ever, a testament to the strength of the ties brokered between the Sonny Bono-born event and Hollywood’s movers and shakers over the past 24 years.
Helen Hunt, John Hawkes, Ang Lee, Tom Hanks, Robert Zemeckis, Martin Sheen, Sally Field, Diane Lane, Richard Gere, Naomi Watts, Helen Mirren, Tom Hooper, Eddie Redmayne, Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston and Alan Arkin were just some of the many major names presenting and/or receiving awards at this year’s installment.
- Here’s the official awards list:
- Argo (Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston) received the Ensemble Performance Award presented by Tony Mendez.
- Bradley Cooper received the Desert Palm Achievement Award Actor for Silver Linings Playbook presented by the film’s director David O. Russell.
- Helen Hunt received the Spotlight Award for The Sessions presented by her co-star John Hawkes.
- Helen Mirren received the International Star Award for Hitchcock presented byTom Hooper, who directed her in Elizabeth I.
- Mychael Danna received the Frederick Loewe Award for Film Composing for Life of Pi presented by Ang Lee.
- Naomi Watts received the Desert Palm Achievement Award Actress for The Impossible presented by her co-star in the filmTom Holland.
- Richard Gere received theChairman’s Award forArbitrage presented by his The Cotton Club, Nights in Rodanthe and Unfaithful co-star Diane Lane.
- Robert Zemeckis received the Director of the Year Award for Flight presented byTom Hanks who he directed in Castaway, Forrest Gump, and Polar Express.
- Sally Field (Lincoln) received theCareer Achievement Award presented by her The Amazing Spider-Man co-starMartin Sheen.
- Tom Hooper received the Sonny Bono Visionary Award for Les Miserables from the film’s co-star Eddie Redmayne
