Viola Davis will collect one of the film world's lower-profile but longer-running honors this fall: the San Diego International Film Festival has named her recipient of its 2026 Gregory Peck Award for Cinematic Excellence, to be presented at the festival's "Night of the Stars" tribute on Oct. 13 at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in La Jolla.
Davis is the first African American woman to receive the award since it was first given out in 2008, and only the fourth woman overall, joining Laura Dern and Annette Bening on a list of recipients that has otherwise run heavily male: Gabriel Byrne, Jim Sheridan, Stephen Frears, Alan Arkin, Patrick Stewart, Keith Carradine, Laurence Fishburne, Andy García and, last year, Mark Hamill. Gregory Peck's daughter, Cecilia Peck, who frequently presents the award on the family's behalf, is expected to hand it to Davis on the night.
A Career the Award Was Built For
Festival co-founder and CEO Tonya Mantooth said the honor is measured as much by a career's range as by the person behind it.
One is the body of work they feel like represents the kind of range that (Peck) had, [and] how much of a humanitarian are they.
— Tonya Mantooth, co-founder and CEO, San Diego International Film Festival
By that measure, Davis is a fairly literal fit. She holds EGOT status — an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony — including a Tony in 2010 and an Oscar in 2017 for the same role, August Wilson's Rose Maxson in "Fences," first on stage and then on screen. Beyond the credits, Times of San Diego reports that Davis founded a charitable organization focused on childhood hunger and domestic-abuse prevention, the kind of off-screen record organizers say increasingly factors into the choice.
A Festival Building Toward October
The Peck tribute lands on opening night of the festival's Oct. 13–18 run, part of a slate that organizers say will pair the awards ceremony with a red-carpet screening and reception before the festival's public program of premieres and panels gets underway the following day. Past recipients have generally used the platform to reflect on decades-long careers rather than promote a single new project, and Davis — who has spent recent years splitting time between acting, producing through her JuVee Productions banner and her advocacy work — is expected to do the same.
Ticketing and further programming details for the Oct. 13 tribute are expected to be released closer to the festival, organizers said, with the full slate of screenings to follow.
