Spotlight director Tom McCarthy (seated, far right) will be presented with the Sonny Bono Visionary Award at the annual Awards Gala of the upcoming 27th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF). The 2016 Palm Springs International Film Festival runs January 1 to 11, 2016.

“Tom McCarthy’s latest feature is the critically acclaimed Spotlight, a remarkable film that creates cinematic tension between two institutions, as The Boston Globe investigates the Catholic Church,” said Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. “For his expert storytelling of this subject matter, The Palm Springs International Film Festival is proud to present Tom McCarthy with the Sonny Bono Visionary Award.”

Spotlight is a film about the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning team of investigative journalists, who in 2002 shocked the city and the world by exposing the Catholic Church’s systematic cover-up of widespread pedophilia perpetrated by more than 70 local priests. Presented by Open Road Films, Spotlight was co-written by McCarthy and Josh Singer, produced by Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Pagon, and stars Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Brian d’Arcy James and Billy Crudup.

McCarthy’s list of filmmaking credits include The Station Agent, (which won a BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay and two Independent Spirit Awards) Win Win, The Visitor, The Cobbler, and Up (which earned him an Oscar® nomination for Best Original Screenplay).

Past recipients of the Sonny Bono Visionary Award include filmmakers Tom Hooper, Danny Boyle, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Linklater and Michel Hazanavicius.