Antonio Banderas to receive Donostia Award

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Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith at the Donostia-San Sebastian Film Festival. Photo: EFE

The Donostia-San Sebastian Film Festival has opened with a star-studded retinue including Woody Allen and Meryl Streep due to stroll the elegant promenades of the seaside city in the Basque Country.

The day will end with a prize-giving in which Antonio Banderas will receive the Donostia Award, an honorific prize given every year to one, two or three actors during the San Sebastian International Film Festival.

A total of 15 films, most of them European, will compete for the Golden Conch award at the 56th edition of the fete, a gathering proud of its product, even if it lacks the crowds of the film festivals in Venice and Cannes.

The chairman of the jury is American director Jonathan Demme, known for such films as “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Philadelphia.”

Streep, a two-time Oscar winner, and Spanish actor Antonio Banderas will receive lifetime achievement awards, while Allen and Javier Bardem have come to plug the new Allen movie, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”