Colin Farrell To Receive Palm Springs Film Festival Gala Actor Award

Colin Farrell To Receive Palm Springs Film Festival Gala Actor Award

Colin Farrell becomes the first 2022 awards contender who will be heading to the Desert.

The Palm Springs International Film Festival has announced that Farrell is the recipient of the Desert Palm Achievement Award for Actor for his performance in The Banshees of Inisherin.

The Film Awards will take place in-person (after a multi year absence due to the pandemic) on January 5, 2023 at the Palm Springs Convention Center, with the festival, which specializes in showing a large number of movies contending for the International Film Oscar, running through January 16, 2023.

“Colin Farrell reunites with Brendan Gleeson and director Martin McDonagh in the masterful comedy The Banshees of Inisherin. Farrell gives a memorable performance as Pádraic a sweet-souled Irish farmer trying to save his lifelong friendship,” said Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. “For this career best performance, we are honored to present the Desert Palm Achievement Award, Actor to Colin Farrell.”

The Banshees of Insherin
Colin Farrell, left, and Brendan Gleeson in ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ (Everett Collection) Jonathan Hession/Searchlight Pictures/Everett Collection

Past actor recipients of the Desert Palm Achievement Award include Riz Ahmed, Jeff Bridges, Bradley Cooper, Daniel Day-Lewis, Adam Driver, Colin Firth, Andrew Garfield, Matthew McConaughey, Gary Oldman, Sean Penn, Brad Pitt and Eddie Redmayne. The festival notes in their release that many recipients of the PSIFF Gala awards have gone on to Oscar wins. PSIFF’s Gala has been a popular stop pre-Oscar nominations in order to shine attention on potential nominees. The awards are generally negotiated between PR consultants, studios and distributors and the festival with a guarantee that the recipient will turn up at the always splashy ceremony right at the beginning of the year. In fact the Desert gala is one of the more elaborate events on the circuit and generally a good place to be seen. Timing is everything as it leads off an important month in the season with awards events nearly nightly somewhere on the planet.

Farrell has had a long career of nearly 20-plus years in film and television.  In 2009, he won a Golden Globe for his role in Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges. Farrell was also nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globe Awards, Best Actor at the British Independent Film Awards, and Best European Actor at the European Film Awards for his role in the film The Lobster.