Penélope Cruz will be honored with the Montecito Award at the 37th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival for her performance in Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers. The Festival will take place in person from March 2 through March 12, 2022, and Cruz will receive the award during an in-person conversation about her career on Tuesday, March 8.

“In the most complex role written by the master Almodovar, Penelope Cruz delivers the best performance of her career and a master class in calibration and detailed acting,” remarked SBIFF’s Executive Director Roger Durling.  “In my book, she’s one of the great performers of our time.”

In Parallel Mothers, two women, Janis (Penélope Cruz) and Ana (Milena Smit), coincide in a hospital room where they are going to give birth. Both are single and became pregnant by accident. Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she is exultant. The other, Ana, an adolescent, is scared, repentant and traumatized. Janis tries to encourage her while they move like sleepwalkers along the hospital corridors. The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close link between the two, which by chance develops and complicates, and changes their lives in a decisive way.

Past recipients include Amanda Seyfried, Lupita Nyong’o, Melissa McCarthy, Saoirse Ronan, Isabelle Huppert, Sylvester Stallone, Jennifer Aniston, Oprah Winfrey, Daniel Day-Lewis, Geoffrey Rush, Julianne Moore, Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts and Javier Bardem.