Gal Gadot to Receive the Rising Star Award at 29th Annual PSIFF Film Awards Gala

The 29th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will present Gal Gadot with the Rising Star Award – Actress at its annual Film Awards Gala for her performance in Wonder Woman. The Film Awards Gala, hosted by Mary Hart, will be held Tuesday, January 2 at the Palm Springs Convention Center.

“Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman showed us a strong, capable, poised, curious and compassionate character, and her performance has been universally praised, resonating with audiences everywhere. Gal plays the immortal warrior so well, and the film’s themes are especially apt for today, empowering all types of people—women and men, young and old—the world over,” said Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. “The Palm Springs International Film Festival is honored to present Gal Gadot with this year’s Rising Star Award – Actress.”

Past recipients of the Rising Star Award include Ruth Negga, Alicia Vikander, Jennifer Lawrence, Scarlett Johansson, Anna Kendrick and Dakota Fanning.

Based on the iconic DC Comic book, Wonder Woman has earned more than $410 million in the U.S. and over $820 million worldwide, set numerous box office records, including becoming the highest-grossing film directed by a woman, the highest-grossing superhero origin film domestically, and the largest opening for a female-led comic-based film. The action adventure, starring Gal Gadot and Chris Pine, was directed by Patty Jenkins from a screenplay by Allan Heinberg, story by Zack Snyder & Heinberg and Jason Fuchs.

Gal Gadot is an actress born in Rosh Ha’ayin, Israel. In 2004, she was crowned Miss Israel; then, like all Israeli citizens, went on to serve two years in the Israel Defense Forces. She studied at IDC Herzliya College before pursuing modeling and acting. While cultivating television work both in Israel and the U.S., Gadot made her film debut in Fast & Furious, as well as its sequels Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6, also performing her own stunts. She appeared in the 2010 action comedy films Date Night and Knight and Day, the 2014 Israeli film Kicking Out Shoshana, and the 2016 films Triple 9, Criminal and Keeping Up with the Joneses. Gadot was cast as Wonder Woman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, before playing the title character in the 2017 mega-hit Wonder Woman, which earned Gadot a Teen Choice Award for Action Actress. She will reprise the character in the DC extended universe film Justice League, to be released on November 17, 2017.

The Festival runs January 4-15, 2018.