FLC Announces Presenters for 48th Chaplin Award Gala Honoring Viola Davis

Film at Lincoln Center announced today that three-time Academy Award® winner Meryl Streep; award-winning director, writer, and producer Gina Prince-Bythewood; Academy Award® winner Jessica Chastain; and Tony Award winner George C. Wolfe will pay tribute to Viola Davis at the 48th Chaplin Award Gala on April 24 at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.

The annual Gala, which has honored some of cinema’s most outstanding talents, will feature Streep, who appeared with Davis in Doubt, for which they both received Academy Award® nominations; Prince-Bythewood, who directed Davis in The Woman King; Chastain, who starred alongside Davis in the Academy Award® nominated The Help and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby; and Wolfe, who directed Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, for which Davis received an Academy Award® nomination, and Nights in Rodanthe. The tribute includes special presenters and speakers and a program of select film clips, culminating in the presentation of the Chaplin Award.

The annual event, which began in 1972, is the most important fundraising event of the year for Film at Lincoln Center, with all proceeds benefiting the organization in its mission to support the art and craft of cinema.

Gala tickets are on sale now. All proceeds from the Chaplin Award Gala benefit Film at Lincoln Center’s programs and activities as a nonprofit organization.

The 48th Chaplin Award Gala will honor Davis, the critically revered, award-winning actor, producer, New York Times best-selling author, and one of 18 entertainers to achieve exclusive EGOT status. She most recently won a Grammy for her audiobook, Finding Me, in addition to an Academy Award® (Fences) and an Emmy (How to Get Away with Murder), and she is the first Black actress to win two Tony Awards (Fences and King Hedley II). In 2021, Davis received an Oscar® nomination for her transformative performance as Ma Rainey in Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. She also won a SAG Award for the role and received nominations for a Golden Globe Award and Critic’s Choice Award. This year, Davis received the Chairman’s Award at the Palm Springs Film Awards recognizing her work as an actor and producer for The Woman King. In 2020, the New York Times ranked her ninth on its list of the greatest actors of the 21st century.

Film at Lincoln Center gives special thanks to the 48th Chaplin Award Gala Co-Chairs: Susan and John Hess, Imelda and Peter Sobiloff, and Daniel and Nanna Stern.