Cate Blanchett Accepts San Sebastian Donostia Award From Alfonso Cuarón, Quips at George Clooney Message and Speaks of ‘Uncertain Times’

Loud screaming could be heard two blocks away from the imponent Kursaal building in San Sebastián on Saturday night as Cate Blanchett arrived at the city’s prestigious international film festival to receive the event’s highest honorary prize, the Donostia Award. 

Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón, who recently worked with Blanchett on Apple TV+’s “Disclaimer,” introduced the Australian actress and producer with a loving speech praising her “insatiable thirst for knowledge, just causes and art.” The filmmaker added that the actress refused to move to London for the long shooting period the series required and chose to drive four hours back and forth to continue nurturing her family life and “fulfill her role as a mother.” 

“Cate has been a tireless voice in her call for compassion towards 114 million refugees,” continued Cuarón, highlighting Blanchett’s activism and work towards causes such as climate change and Indigenous rights. As the actress took to the stage to collect her accolade, the director cued up a message from Blanchett’s friend and longtime collaborator George Clooney, recorded while the actor was at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month to premiere another Apple TV+ outing, Jon Watts’s “Wolfs.” 

“I want to say that there’s acting as a profession, and then there’s acting as an art,” said Clooney, going on to rank Blanchett alongside Marlon Brandon, Catherine Hepburn, Meryl Streep and Robert de Niro. “Catie, I feel lucky that I had the chance to work with someone who is so gifted and kind, and I am proud to call you a friend,” added the actor before jokingly saying the reason he couldn’t make it to the ceremony is because he was drinking and had no pants on — a quip to the video only showing his top half. 

Blanchett, mid-laughter, began her acceptance speech by exclaiming, “F*cking George!” but became more and more moved as she spoke about the art of acting and the honor of being able to travel the world with her craft. “As an Australian working abroad, I’ve had the privilege of transcending many borders. Here, in the Basque Country, at this extraordinarily vibrant festival that itself transcends cultural, regional and international borders, it feels like a real homecoming. I am very honored.”

“We often talk about cinema like it’s an endangered species, and I am grateful to be sharing the stage with one of the world’s greatest cinema artists,” said Blanchett of Cuarón, adding that working with the director on “Disclaimer” was “one of the greatest privileges” of her career. She thanked the filmmaker for his kind words and the “many conversations about the state of our industry and the future of the cinematic arts.”

The “Tár” actress looked back at her decades-long career, stating the “connective tissue” in her work is “the desire to unlock what it means to be human, that strange nub of fearful, joyful uncertainty that it is to be a human being.” 

“It’s bewildering to me that there seems to be a lot of chest-thumping certainty in the world, a lot of righteousness and a lack of doubt, when in fact, the world is a deeply uncertain place. A creative life is fuelled by uncertainty and doubt; it’s the DNA of any project. This uncertainty drives me. It’s a very uncomfortable place to be and something I think we all share as humans. We are living in very, very uncertain times.”

Before exiting the stage and leaving the audience with a screening of Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson’s “Rumours,” Blanchett said she has been reading a lot of Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector’s work as of late. She ended her acceptance speech with one of Lispector’s quotes: “There are certain advantages in not knowing. Like a virgin territory, the mind is free from misconceptions. Everything I do not know forms the greater part of me: This is my largesse. And with this, I understand everything.” 

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