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Santa Barbara film fest will honor Travolta
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The Santa Barbara International Film Festival continues its long string of reeling in A-list talent.
This time it's John Travolta. He will be honored with the second annual Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film this fall, organizers announced this week.
Travolta, star of such films as "Saturday Night Fever," "Grease," "Pulp Fiction" and the recent "Hairspray," will receive the award at a black-tie dinner Nov. 15 at the Four Seasons Biltmore in Santa Barbara.
The event is a fundraiser for the festival. Douglas, the inaugural recipient, will present the award.
"He is so deserving of this unique award," said Roger Durling, the festival's director. "For the past four decades, John Travolta has given us iconic performances, just as Kirk has done in his lifetime."
Ticket information for the event is pending.
The 23rd annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival will take place Jan. 24 through Feb. 3.
The event, comfortably situated amid the fervor for Oscar nominations and the Academy Awards show itself, now regularly attracts 50,000 to 60,000 visitors and honors a host of Hollywood celebrities. That typically includes a sizable chunk of the Oscars field.
That doesn't figure to change much next year. The 2008 Academy Awards are slated for Feb. 24, and the nominations will come out Jan. 22, just two days before the festival opens.
This year's event, held from Jan. 25 to Feb. 4, honored Will Smith, Helen Mirren, Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Hudson, Al Gore and Davis Guggenheim, among others.
Previous Santa Barbara honorees have included George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jodie Foster, Peter Jackson and Diane Keaton.
The festival also includes screenings, seminars, discussion panels, youth film competitions, parties and all stripes of film — indies, documentaries, foreign, mainstream and alternative.
General information is available at www.sbfilmfestival.org.
— Brett Johnson
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