The San Sebastian Film Festival surprised the film community and movie audiences around the world, by announcing that the "Donostia" Lifetime Achievement Award at the 69th session of the festival, scheduled to be held on September 22, will be awarded to American star Johnny Depp.

He joined a list of stars who won this prestigious award, such as Ethan Hawke, Sigourney Weaver, Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz and Viggo Mortensen.

In the same vein, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, in the Czech Republic, also announced plans to "honor" Depp at its next session, which will be held in late August.

The irony is that Depp, 57, despite the devastation of his artistic career as a result of his successive and resounding scandals, seemed to be predicting that the year 2021 would be brighter, when he wrote to his 9 million followers on Instagram, just a few weeks after losing the major defamation case. Against the British newspaper "The Sun", worth 50 million dollars, expressing his optimistic expectations, after a "difficult" year of heavy losses, wishing "a better time in the future."

devastating scandals

The announcements came after a series of scandals that swept Depp's career recently, following his loss of the major libel case in London, and after the Supreme Court convicted him of assaulting his ex-wife, Amber Heard several times over the years, in a landmark 127-page ruling.

In addition, his latest film, Minamata 2020, has not been released in the United States.

He was also asked to step down from his role in the third part of the movie "Fantastic Beasts", by the producing company.

Then "Disney abandoned him, after the unparalleled success of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie series."

Experts even predicted that Depp's career, which brought in 5 films, including revenues of $ 4.5 billion, and earned from each film about $ 55 million, "may never recover."

Immediate condemnation

As soon as the San Sebastian Festival administration published a statement on its official website, it praised Deeb as "one of the most talented and diverse representatives of contemporary cinema."

Even a leading group of Spanish female filmmakers condemned the decision to award Depp the highest honor, saying it "gave the international event a bad name".

Cristina Andreu, president of the Spanish Association of Women Filmmakers and Audiovisual Media, told the Associated Press that she was "very surprised" by the decision to give Depp the highest award, which aims to honor lifetime achievement, saying that this conveys a horrific message to the public that "it does not matter if you are abusive, As long as you're a good actor."

Andrew added that the association, which has close links to the San Sebastian festival, was "considering the next steps".

A different kind of movie star

Johnny Depp, an American actor and musician known for his eclectic and unconventional cinematic choices, achieved his greatest success as Captain Jack Sparrow in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series.

It was said by the author of "Harry Potter", J.

in order to.

Rowling, in a statement she posted on her personal blog in 2017, said, "We are really pleased to have Johnny play a major character in our films."

He was first discovered in 1987, through his role in the popular TV series "21 Jump Street".

Then in the 1990s - where he was "a different kind of movie star, eloquent, artistic and brilliant, as film critic Hadley Freeman described - he rose to stardom in Hollywood with the character of "Edward Scissorhands" (Edward Scissorhands) 1990.

He continued to rise over the following decades, with his movie icons such as the 1993 drama "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", the 1997 crime film "Donnie Brasco" opposite Al Pacino and then the horror film. Sleepy Hollow 1999, acclaimed in 2003, for his role in "Pirates of the Caribbean", for which he was nominated for an Oscar.

He was also nominated for an Oscar the following year for the family drama "Finding Neverland", and was nominated for an Oscar for the third time in his artistic career for the horror movie "Sweeney Todd" in 2007. He won 79 film awards, in addition to 150 nominations for other awards.

Nobody can take away your pure talent

But Depp began to lose the admiration of critics and audiences, and failed to achieve revenue at the box office for 3 consecutive years, in new shows such as the horror and comedy “Dark Shadows” 2012, and the adventure movie “The Lone Ranger” 2013. And the science fiction movie "Transcendence" 2014.

At a time when Hadley Freeman, on the British newspaper, “The Guardian”, said that Depp “has become a consumer cliché, after that was the only thing we thought would never happen,” Depp said, commenting on the abandonment of “Warner Brothers” Bros), the producer of the "Fantastic Beasts" series of films for his role in it, "No one can take away your pure talent."