Johnny Depp to receive San Sebastian Film Festival’s Highest Honour Donostia Award

Johnny Depp is all set to be awarded the San Sebastian Film Festival’s (September 17-25) Donostia Award, its highest accolade. The festival described Depp as “one of contemporary cinema’s most talented and versatile actors”. Depp was at the European festival last year to present Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane McGowan. He also made a momentary appearance at the Spanish fest in 1998 with the British Film director Terry Gilliam.

Actors Ethan Hake, Sigourney Weaver, Penelope Cruz, Jude Dench and Viggo Mortensen are the recent recipients of the Donostia Award.

It is anticipated that some eyebrows will be raised as Depp is set to receive the award given the high-profile and ongoing legal entanglements for the Pirates Of The Caribbean star. But San Sebastian has not been afraid to zig when others have zagged in recent years. Last year the event opened with Woody Allen’s latest film, Rifkin’s Festival.

Superstardom Depp is known for movies like the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and Edward Scissorhands, who recently starred as war photographer W. Eugene Smith in Minamata.

However, the director of that movie, Andrew Levitas was at odds with studio MGM because of the muted release of the film. He claimed that Depp’s baggage caused the studio to bury the movie. Depp was recently involved in a very messy court case involving Brit tabloid The Sun and his former wife Amber Heard. Depp lost the case and was asked by Warner Bros to resign his role as Grindelwald in the Harry Potter spinoff of the Fantastic Beasts franchise. He remains involved in a $50 million defamation lawsuit against Heard in the United States.