Annette Bening will be honored with the inaugural Arlington Award at the 39th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival next month. Bening will receive the award on Friday, February 16th, 2024 at an in-person conversation about her career leading up to this year’s performance in Netflix’s NYAD, directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. "This is the first award added to our slate in twenty years. It is made to honor an artist who is greatly admired and who has demonstrated an incomparable commitment to film and its craft. Ms. Bening has not only displayed all of those qualities, but is considered by us to be a friend of the film festival. It feels fitting that this award – named after the home of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival – is first given to her '' said by Executive Director Roger Durling.