The 23rd annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will honor Jessica Chastain with the Spotlight Award and composer Howard Shore with the Frederick Loewe Award for Film Composing.

Jessica Chastain will receive the Spotlight Award.  The Spotlight Award honors an actor or actress for their extraordinary performances in the current cinematic year.  Chastain will receive the award for her roles in The Help, The Tree of Life, Take Shelter, The Debt and Coriolanus.

Her work in Take Shelter earned a Gotham Award for Best Ensemble Cast and an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Female.  Her other honors this year include a New York Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Tree of Life, The Help and Take Shelter and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s award as Best Supporting Actress for all of her movies this year.  Additionally, Chastain’s role in The Help led her to several acclamations including a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture, a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role and a Critics’ Choice Movie Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Howard Shore will receive the Frederick Loewe Award for Film Composing.  He previously received the same honor at the Festival’s Awards Gala in 2005 for composing the score in The Aviator.  His collaboration with director Martin Scorsese also includes composing the scores for “Gangs of New York” and “The Departed.”  This year he will be receiving the award for his ‘exceptional’ work in Martin Scorsese’s Hugo.

PSIFF recipients of the Frederick Loewe Music Award include T Bone Burnett, Alexandre Desplat, Danny Elfman, James Newton Howard, Randy Newman and Diane Warren.