According to the film festival, Depp will receive the renowned Donostia Award in late September, which “recognizes outstanding contributions to the film world.” Depp has been dubbed “one of contemporary cinema’s most talented and versatile actors.”

They add that throughout his varied and often contentious career, Depp has “has played writers, undercover cops or outlaws, almost always misfits”

Depp, unquestionably one of the world’s most successful and well-known actors, is now widely regarded as publicly toxic following his failed libel suit against British tabloid The Sun, which resulted in the courts upholding The Sun’s description of him as a “wife beater” and the ruling judge stating that he believed Depp had assaulted ex-wife Amber Heard on multiple occasions. As a result of the judgment, Warner Bros. dropped Depp from the Fantastic Beasts franchise and replaced him with Mads Mikkelsen in the character of Grindelwald, the wicked wizard. More recently, MGM apparently buried Minamata, Depp’s passion project in which he plays an American photojournalist who called the world’s attention to a terrible environmental calamity in Japan, in order to avoid the controversy surrounding its star.

Depp announced his departure from the “Fantastic Beasts” trilogy, stating that Warner Bros., the studio behind the movie, had asked for his resignation “in light of recent events.”

Last year, Depp attended the San Sebastian Film Festival to screen Julien Temple’s film Crock Of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan.

San Sebastian festival director José Luis Rebordinos stated his decision to recognize Depp, despite the turmoil surrounding him, in answer to a question from The Hollywood Reporter.

“The role of a film festival is not to judge the conduct of members of the film industry. The role of a film festival is to select the most relevant and interesting films of the year and to extend recognition to those who have made an extraordinary contribution to the art of film,” Rebordinos said in a statement. “The Donostia Award to Johnny Depp is our recognition of a great actor, a man of cinema with a great career, who visited us last year as producer of the film Crock of Gold: A Few Round With Shane Macgowan by Julien Temple, which won the Special Jury Prize.”

When Depp gets the Donostia Award, he will join a list of previous winners that includes Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts, and Dame Judi Dench, according to the Evening Standard.

Depp will be appearing at the event for the third time. He last attended in 2020 as the producer of “Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane Macgowan,” a documentary on Shane MacGowan, the famous leader of the Pogues. The Special Jury Prize was awarded to the film.