The 28th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival will present Annette Bening with the Career Achievement Award at its annual Film Awards Gala.  The Film Awards Gala, hosted by Mary Hart, will be held Monday, January 2 at the Palm Springs Convention Center. The Festival runs January 2-16, 2017.

“Throughout her career, Annette Bening has brought to the screen many memorable performances including the four films for which she was nominated for an Academy Award:  ‘American Beauty,’ ‘The Grifters,’ ‘The Kids Are All Right,’ and ‘Being Julia,’” said Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. “Bening creates yet another memorable award-winning role portraying Dorothea, a free-spirited single mother raising her teenage son in Mike Mills’ upcoming film 20th Century Women. It is our great honor to present the Career Achievement Award to Annette Bening.”

Past recipients of the Career Achievement Award include Glenn Close, Kevin Costner, Bruce Dern, Robert Duvall, Clint Eastwood, Sally Field, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson and Lynn Redgrave.

Bening stars in “20th Century Women,” from acclaimed filmmaker Mike Mills who delivers a richly multilayered, funny, heart-stirring celebration of the complexities of women, family, time and the connections we search for our whole lives. It is a film that keeps redefining itself as it goes along, shifting with its characters as they navigate the pivotal summer of 1979. Set in Santa Barbara, the film follows Dorothea Fields (Bening), a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son, Jamie (newcomer Lucas Jade Zumann) at a moment brimming with cultural change and rebellion. Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women in Jamie’s upbringing – via Abbie (Greta Gerwig), a free-spirited punk artist living as a boarder in the Fields’ home, and Julie (Elle Fanning), a savvy and provocative teenage neighbor.

For her role in the film, Bening received Best Actress nominations from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, Golden Globes, Gotham Awards and Independent Film Spirit Awards. 

Annette Bening is a four-time Academy Award® nominee, two-time Golden Globe winner, and two-time recipient of the Screen Actors Guild Award.  Her film credits include “The Kids Are All Right,” “American Beauty,” “Being Julia,” “Danny Collins,” “The Search,” “The Face of Love,” “Girl Most Likely,” “Ginger & Rosa,” “Ruby Sparks,” “Mother and Child,” “The Women,” “Running with Scissors,” “Mrs. Harris,” “In Dreams,” “The Siege,” “The American President,” “Mars Attacks!,” “Richard III,” “Love Affair,” “Bugsy,” “Regarding Henry,” “The Grifters,” “Guilt By Suspicion,” “Valmont,” “Postcards From the Edge” and “The Great Outdoors.”  She can currently be seen in the film “Rules Don’t Apply” and her upcoming films are “The Seagull” and “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool.”

Previously announced honorees attending the 2017 Film Awards Gala are Amy Adams, Casey Affleck, Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman, Ruth Negga, the cast of “Hidden Figures” including Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner and Jim Parsons, and the cast of “La La Land,” including Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, and director Damien Chazelle.