Bahamas International Film Festival Dailies

The Bahamas International Film Festival (BIFF) announced today that Daryl Hannah will receive the Festival’s prestigious Career Achievement Tribute Award. The announcement was made by BIFF Founder and Executive Director Leslie Vanderpool.

Sponsored by wealth management company Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch, BIFF’s Career Achievement Tribute honors an actor or actress whose work has had a major impact and has advanced the frontiers of cinematic artistry around the world. Academy Award® winner Nicolas Cage was presented with the award last year.

Hannah will be on hand for the tribute presentation on Saturday, December 8th at the Atlantis Hotel & Resort on Paradise Island. Academy Award® winner Sir Sean Connery will again be lending his full support at BIFF, attending as the Festival’s Patron and presenting Daryl Hannah with the Career Achievement Tribute Award.

Laurent Colli, Head of Private Banking for Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch Private Bank and Trust said, "Our commitment to the Bahamas International Film Festival is a continuing effort to expand the Bahamian international culture to all countries around the world."

BIFF 2007 takes place from Thursday December 6th, through Thursday, December 13th. Because of the enormous growth and support for the Festival in its first three years, The Festival has been extended to a full seven days beginning this year. This year’s Festival will showcase 83 films from 26 different countries, including 54 features of which several are world or international premieres and nearly all Bahamian premieres.

Daryl Hannah’s career has spanned a 20 year period with appearances in over 40 feature films. From her early start as a teenager in Chicago in Brian De Palma’s “The Fury” starring Kirk Douglas, she set a pattern of working with some of the most talented and accomplished actors and directors of our time. Some of those include her turn as a gymnastic punk android in Ridley’s Scott’s cult classic “Blade Runner” starring Harrison Ford, to playing the innocent mermaid in Ron Howard’s “Splash” co-starring Tom Hanks and John Candy (and filmed in the Bahamas). Hannah has also worked with Woody Allen, Neil Jordan, Oliver Stone, Robert Altman and John Sayles to name a few.

Some of her most memorable films, which have stood the test of time, include “Roxanne” with Steve Martin, “Steel Magnolias” with Shirley MacLlaine and Julia Roberts, “The Pope of Greenwich Village” with Mickey Rourke, “Grumpy Old Men” and “Grumpier Old Men” with the beloved Walter Mattheau and the great Jack Lemmon.

As well as the big studio films, Daryl has become a strong supporter and advocate of independent cinema, not only with her acting, but also by producing many films. She played a sad comic stripper in the fully improvised “Dancing at the Blue Iguana” directed by Michael Radford, a hermaphrodite angel in the Polish Brother’s “Northfolk” co-starring Nick Nolte and James Woods and a women struggling with adoption in John Sayles “Casa de los babies”.

Hannah can be seen in Quinton Tarantino’s highly successful “KILL BILL” Vol. 1 & Vol. II, in which she played the one eyed samurai assassin “Elle Driver.” She recently completed John Sayles’ political satire “Silver City” co-starring Richard Dreyfuss and Chris Cooper.

In 2001, Hannah made her stage debut in George Axelrod’s “Seven Year Itch,” directed by Michael Radford at the Queens Theatre in London’s famed West End. Hannah wrote, directed, and produced a 12-minute short, entitled “The Last Supper,” which received the Berlin International Film Festival’s Jury Award for Best Short. Hannah also directed, produced and shot the documentary “Strip Notes” which was inspired while researching her role for “Dancing At The Blue Iguana” that was shown on HBO and UK’s Channel 4.