Mariska Hargitay will be honored with the 2022 Dick Cavett Artistic Champion Award at the 30th anniversary of the Hamptons International Film Festival.
The festival, running October 7 through October 16 as a live and in-person event, . The Dick Cavett Artistic Champion Award was created in 2017 by Hamptons Film chairman emeritus Alec Baldwin. It honors people in the creative arts who excel in their field and support artists in other fields, such as education and related media.
Hargitay is best known for her Emmy-winning role as Captain Olivia Benson in NBC’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In 2004, she founded the Joyful Heart Foundation, a nationwide non-profit that supports and advocates for survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse. Its initiatives support the mental health needs of trauma professionals, support male survivors, and attempt to end the nationwide rape kit backlog. In 2017, Hargitay executive produced I Am Evidence, about the backlog. It screened at the 25th Hamptons International Film Festival.
“We are so thrilled to be able to honor Mariska Hargitay at this year’s anniversary,” said HamptonsFilm executive director Anne Chaisson. “A role model for many across the globe for her acting career and her championing of causes around domestic violence, Mariska embodies everything the Dick Cavett Artistic Champion Award was created to represent. She is also a huge supporter of local Hamptons causes and we are lucky to have her as part of our community.”
The festival also announced the world premiere screenings of five films, including Xavier Manrique’s locally shot Who Invited Charlie? The film stars Jordana Brewster, Adam Pally, and Reid Scott, and follows a family hiding out in the Hamptons. Their bubble is popped when the Bloody Mary-swilling, pot-smoking “Charlie” shows up from the past, seeking refuge.
The Discovery+ film January 6th, directed by Jules and Gédéon Naudet, will screen as part of the World Cinema Documentary section. Pinball — The Man Who Saved the Game, directed by Austin and Meredith Bragg and starring Mike Faist, Crystal Reed, and Dennis Boutsikaris, is a World Cinema Narrative selection.
A Radical Life, directed by Ricki Stern and screening as part of the Films of Conflict & Resolution section, looks at the former so-called “First Lady of ISIS,” Tania Joya, who was married for 12 years to John Georgelas, the highest-ranking American in ISIS.
Finally, the World Cinema Documentary selection The Volcano: Rescue From Whakaari, directed by Rory Kennedy and distributed by Netflix, is a minute-by-minute account of tourists caught in a volcanic eruption while sightseeing on an island off New Zealand in 2019.
The festival also announced the first group of narrative and documentary films that will screen as part of the World Cinema sections. In the World Cinema Narrative section, HIFF will screen MUBI’s Decision to Leave, directed by HIFF alum Park Chan-wook, about a detective investigating a man’s mysterious death in the mountains. The World Cinema Documentary section will feature Desperate Souls, Dark City and Nancy Buirski’s The Legend of Midnight Cowboy, which tells the unlikely story of the film Midnight Cowboy.
Additional programming includes the Spotlight feature Call Jane, directed by Phyllis Nagy and distributed by Roadside Attractions.
Main image: Mariska Hargitay, courtesy of the Hamptons International Film Festival.
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