Bridget Everett Honored With Breakthrough Performer Award

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Comedian, cabaret artist and actress Bridget Everett will be honored with the first ever Breakthrough Award at the Athena Film Festival, and we don’t know anyone more deserving of recognition for her many talents.

The festival celebrates the leadership and creative accomplishments of trailblazers in the entertainment industry and showcases films about powerful and courageous women leaders in real life and the fictional world; it is a weekend dedicated to elevating female voices and stories to inspire and empower a new generation of filmmakers and individuals.

Bridget Everett is increasingly being recognized for her incredible performance talents in comedy, film, television, and music and we’ve been raving about her for years. Everett and her band, The Tender Moments, perform regularly to sold-out theaters, she’s headlined around the country, been a tremendous part of New York culture with residencies at Joe’s Pub, headlined at major festivals like Just for Laughs, Moontower, Bonnaroo, Oddball, Festival Supreme and San Francisco Sketchfest. Part of the Schu-Pack (Amy Schumer’s crew of talented women), she’s been on Inside Amy Schumer and in the movie Trainwreck, she had a killer television special, Bridget Everett: Gynecological Wonder on Comedy Central, and she is a recurring character on Netflix’s Lady Dynamite. Why? Because everyone in the industry loves her and now is her time to have more of the country see what she is capable of doing in her career. She is the star of the films Little Evil, Fun Mom Dinner, and the Sundance hit Patti Cake$.

But what we’re most excited about this week, is Everett’s new pilot, currently airing on Amazon Prime. She is the co-creator, co-writer and star of “Love You More,” which premiered on November 10, 2017, so get on Amazon, watch it, and vote for it to go to series- although we can’t imagine any universe where this series isn’t already at least unofficially picked up.

Kathryn Kolbert, co-founder of the Athena Film Festival and the Constance Hess Williams ‘66 Director of the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College said of the awards, “now more than ever, it is critically important to recognize and support women who are trailblazers in their fields.”

Also being recognized are documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple with the Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award and BAFTA winning writer and director Amma Asante who will receive the Athena Award. Previous Athena Film Festival awardees include Ava DuVernay, Eve Ensler, Greta Gerwig, Diablo Cody, Kasi Lemmons, Karyn Kusama, Debra Martin Chase, Dee Rees and Nekisa Cooper, Patricia Riggen, Callie Khouri, Gina Prince-Bythewood, and Julie Taymor.

The eighth annual festival, co-founded by the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College and Women and Hollywood, will take place February 22-25, 2018, at Barnard College in New York City.