'Boyhood' Filmmaker to Receive Sonny Bono Visionary Award

Filmmaker Richard Linklater will be honored at the Palm Springs International Film Festival Jan. 3 for his film “Boyhood.”

Linklater will be feted at the Palm Springs Convention Center, where he will accept the Sonny Bono Visionary Award, festival organizers said.

“Richard Linklater’s latest feature film is the critically acclaimed ‘Boyhood,’ a one-of-a-kind epic undertaking shot over the course of 12 years with the same cast,” festival Chairman Harold Matzner said. “For his creative innovations in filmmaking, the Palm Springs International Film Festival is proud to present Richard Linklater with the Sonny Bono Visionary Award.”

Linklater wrote, produced and directed “Boyhood,” which follows a boy named Mason (Ellar Coltrane) as he grows up. The movie includes road trips, family dinners, birthdays and graduations. Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette play Mason’s parents.

Some of Linklater’s other film credits include “Dazed and Confused,” “Before Sunrise,” “School of Rock,” “A Scanner Darkly,” and “Bernie.” He was nominated for best adapted screenplay Academy Awards for “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight.”

Past recipients of the Sonny Bono Visionary Award include Tom Hooper, Danny Boyle, Quentin Tarantino and Michel Hazanavicius.

Linklater will join fellow honorees Eddie Redmayne, J.K. Simmons, Rosamund Pike and Julianne Moore, with other gala nominees still to be announced.

For more information on the Palm Springs International Film Festival, which runs from Jan. 2-12, call (760) 322-2930 or go to www.psfilmfest.org.

— By City News Service.