Guillermo del Toro used a career honor at the Palm Springs International Film Awards to share personal news: his older brother died three days earlier. Accepting the festival’s Visionary Award on Saturday, Jan. 3, del Toro told the audience he came anyway because the film he was there for speaks to “fatherhood and forgiveness,” tying that idea to the way grief keeps moving through the body even after a loss.
Del Toro appeared onstage with Frankenstein actors Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi and Mia Goth, and he told the room he might miss some stops on the awards-season circuit, yet he did not want to miss Palm Springs. “I’m here because this is family,” he said, gesturing toward his collaborators, adding that “life gives you a family on the way.”
Festival organizers had positioned Frankenstein as a centerpiece of the gala weeks earlier, announcing the Visionary Award would go to the project and, for the first time, be shared jointly by a director and cast. The festival said the Jan. 3 ceremony at the Palm Springs Convention Center would anchor a Jan. 2–12 run for the festival itself. In its announcement, festival chairman Nachhattar Singh Chandi credited del Toro with a fresh take on the classic story and singled out Isaac, Elordi and Goth for performances that sharpen the film’s human stakes.
The weekend’s programming has leaned into that craft-first framing. At another recent public conversation about Frankenstein, del Toro discussed the story as a tool for talking about scientific ambition and moral responsibility, in a setting that paired him with Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna for a discussion about technology and humanity. At Palm Springs, Elordi struck a more personal note while reflecting on footage from the production, saying he felt “grateful” to have those memories for life.
