Cynthia Erivo Honored With SBIFF’s Kirk Douglas Award For Excellence in Film

Having been blessed with the opportunity to cover this amazing SBIFF evening honoring excellence in film since its inception, which has been presented to the best of the best over the years, I was overjoyed to know the multi-talented Cynthia Erivo would be the Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film recipient for 2025.

Cynthia Erivo’s personal history of working hard to achieve her dreams, and the outstanding awards she has won including multiple Oscar nominations for her Harriet Tubman role (2020) Best Actress and Best Original Song, and Best Actress for her role in Wicked (2025).

Her performance in The Color Purple won her a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical, and Daytime Award for Outstanding Musical Performance in a Daytime Program and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album alongside the cast of The Color Purple made her the perfect choice to receive this year’s Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film.

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival celebrated Cynthia Erivo with the SBIFF Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film December 4^th at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara Resort in Santa Barbara at their black-tie dinner before an audience of film makers, admirers, award supporters, sponsors, fans and friends.  

The prestigious award presentation marked the fourth time the prestigious award, which benefits the film festival’s year-round educational programs was presented at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara since the passing of screen legend Kirk Douglas.

Ernesto Paredes, President of the SBIFF Board highlighted the festival’s new 5-plex film center in downtown Santa Barbara that represents a significant investment in the future of the festival and the community’s artistic vibrancy, as well as in the revitalization and beautification of downtown.

The McHurley Film Center will be a state-of-the-art cinema that will allow SBIFF to expand their year-round programming of independent, foreign, documentary, retrospective and family-friendly films, to grow educational programs and offer greater accessibility to the community.  

The city buzz is the Santa Barbara community is looking forward with great anticipation to experiencing the 2025 film festival submissions in the outstanding new McHurley Film Center.

The award program featured a speech by Tony, BAFTA, and Emmy-award winning producer Marc Platt who celebrated Cynthia’s outstanding filmography, who noted that they couldn’t move forward with making Wicked until they found their Elphaba. “Thank Oz for Cynthia Erivo!”

Jon M. Chu, award-winning film director, presented Cynthia Erivo with the 2025 Kirk Douglas Award. He spoke about how she “makes the impossible feel inevitable” as he celebrated Cynthia Erivo’s continued dedication to artistry and achievement in film. “This is my sister. My defiant, brilliant, bad-ass witch. But she’s not mine, she belongs to herself. I am only the witness with a very expensive camera,” Chu praised. “She loves humanity even when humanity doesn’t know what box to put her in because she’s bigger than the box. Some would say she defies gravity.”

Cynthia Erivo accepted the award, saying “Thank you to the Santa Barbara Film Festival for this extraordinary honor, and all of you in this room for contributing to education programs that will continue to inspire the next generation of film artists. We need them. … When I think of the last recipients, I realize I am still a student, and I will continue to be as time goes by because art does that. Thank you for this because it reminds me, yes, of how far I’ve come, but also how much more I have to go. And this is a beautiful pit stop along the way. So, thank you, thank you to my entire team, and thank you again to Santa Barbara Film Fest for this lovely recognition.

Since 2006, the annual Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film has been awarded to a lifelong contributor to cinema through their work in front of the camera, behind, or both. Past honorees include Will Ferrell, Ryan Gosling, Michelle Yeoh, Martin Scorsese, Hugh Jackman, Dame Judi Dench, Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda, Jessica Lange, Forest Whitaker, Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford, Quentin Tarantino, Ed Harris, and John Travolta.