20th Arpa Film Festival To Honor Hollywood Icons at Anniversary Gala

HOLLYWOOD—Plans are currently underway for a spectacular weekend (November 3 to 5) marking the 20th anniversary of Arpa International Film Festival.

The three-day festival will once again feature a dynamic set of films from around the world at the historic Egyptian Theatre located in the heart of Hollywood. The weekend will culminate with a special Awards Gala Banquet being held at the Loews Hollywood Hotel on Sunday, November 5. Highlights of the Awards Gala Banquet will include a red carpet and cocktail reception, featuring an exclusive silent auction prior to the evening’s dinner and awards ceremony.

This year’s honorees include Oscar-winning Irish screenwriter and director Terry George, music icon Chris Cornell (in memoriam), acclaimed actor Carl Weathers, and Oscar-winning screenwriter Alexander Dinelaris. Awards will also be presented to winning filmmakers for their films in the best feature, best documentary, and best short categories.

Arpa’s coveted Armin T. Wegner Humanitarian Award, presented each year to a filmmaker whose work contributes toward the struggle for social consciousness and human rights, will be awarded to Terry George (In the name of the Father, Some Mother’s Son, Hotel Rwanda, The Shore, The Promise) in recognition of his extensive body of films that have shed light on the situation in his native Northern Ireland, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Armenian Genocide.

The Armin T. Wegner Humanitarian Award is named after the German soldier/medic who was stationed in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, where he witnessed the onslaught of the Armenian Genocide. The photographs he took documenting the plight of the Armenians, today comprises the core of witness images of the Genocide. In the years following the end of World War I, Wegner also voiced his opposition against the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazis, who later persecuted him.

Arpa International Film Festival is honored to be presenting this year’s Lifetime Legacy Award to music icon Chris Cornell, whose life came to a tragic end in May this year. Chris Cornell, best known as the lead vocalist for the rock bands Soundgarden and Audioslave, as well as the founder and frontman of Temple of the Dog, was also a human rights activist committed to the world refugee crisis and the despair of vulnerable children. The Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter’s last solo release was the charity single “The Promiseâ€