A harbinger of the high-profile Santa Barbara International Film Festival, two months before the festivities begin, the SBIFF Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film gala is a swanky affair with an on-the-ground beneficiary. A well-heeled, mostly well-behaved black-tie crowd packs into the Ritz-Carlton Bacara ballroom, is fed a sumptuous surf and turf dinner and feted with an elaborate celebrity tribute — this year spotlighting actor Cynthia Erivo (Wicked).
On the proverbial back end, this annual shindig benefits the festival’s robust education component. Young people in the community and aspiring film students reap the benefits of the gala goings-on.
As with SBIFFs tribute nights during the festival run, the chosen celebrity subjects are riding waves of publicity and Oscar campaigning for a current hot project. The 18th annual Kirk Douglas Award cast a timely light on Erivo amid her widely praised performance in the currently running Wicked: For Good, following her similarly buzzworthy work in last year's Wicked.