Catapulting to the elite rungs of the award season conversation after winning a Gotham Award for Outstanding Lead Performance earlier this week, Colman Domingo will also receive the prestigious Montecito Award at the 40th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Friday, February 14, 2025. The festivities will highlight Domingo’s masterful performance in director Greg Kwedar’s film Sing Sing (see my review here), a powerful drama based on the real life Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program.
Domingo’s star turn as Divine G brings an incredible mix of vulnerability, charisma, and resilience to the big screen in a film that focuses on a prison drama program and what happens when a somewhat reluctant outsider joins the group, and the men decide to stage an original comedy production.
Recognized as part of last year’s SBIFF Virtuosos Awardees for his affecting performance as Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin in Netflix and Higher Ground’s film Rustin for which he received an Academy Award Nomination, Golden Globes, BAFTA and SAG nomination, Domingo was not able to attend last year’s ceremony due to a filming conflict. He did, however, attend a recent SBIFF Cinema Society screening of Sing Sing and Executive Director Roger Durling interviewed him after the film, in which Domingo shared that the filmmakers struggled for six or seven years “trying to figure out their way into the script [for Sing Sing].”
Domingo shared, “I saw the idea that these men were holding each other accountable to be tender, to have a space that’s protected about theater and putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and doing this deep dive of work, and you’re protecting it. It really is a very secret program in these prisons, and the fact that they’re doing this work in a very dangerous place, I thought was incredible, and so I told my director … I’m very interested in seeing Black men being tender with one another, brown men being tender with one another. Because I think that there’s always images to say that we are anything but tender, and I thought this is a great opportunity.”
The film is indeed a very different look at the prison system, made all the more powerful in that it’s based on a true story.
“Colman is such a committed performer and of the most extraordinary talents in the small screen, in theater and in film, and he makes it all seem effortless,” shared Durling. Adding, “His work in Sing Sing is unforgettable.”
In addition to last year’s Rustin, Domingo was seen as “Mister” in the Warner Bros production of The Color Purple, which received a SAG Ensemble nomination. He is also well known for his Emmy Award–winning role as “Ali” in HBO’s Euphoria, as well as his roles in Zola, If Beale Street Could Talk, Selma, Candyman, and many more. He recently wrapped production on Michael, playing Joe Jackson, directed by Antoine Fuqua. Lionsgate will release the film October 3, 2025.
With the Montecito Award from SBIFF, Domingo joins a renowned list of past recipients that includes Jeffrey Wright, Angela Bassett, Penélope Cruz, 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.
The 40th Santa Barbara International Film Festival will take place February 4-February 15, 2025. Official events including screenings, filmmaker Q&As, industry panels, and celebrity tributes, will be held at SBIFF’s Riviera Theatre and its new Film Center, plus the historic Arlington Theatre. Passes for the 2025 Festival are on sale now at sbiff.org.
