Outfest will honor Tom Hanks and Lisa Cholodenko with Legacy Awards

Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks and Academy Award-nominated writer-director Lisa Cholodenko are this year’s recipients of the Outfest Legacy Awards.

Outfest, the L.A.-based nonprofit organization that promotes equality by “creating, sharing and protecting” LGBT stories on screen, will announce Thursday that Hanks will receive the Trailblazer Award in recognition of his Oscar-winning performance in 1993’s “Philadelphia.”

“More than two decades later, Tom Hanks’ performance as a gay man with AIDS in ‘Philadelphia’ stands as a landmark example of a risk well taken,” read a statement from the Outfest board’s co-president and Legacy Awards event co-chairman, Ari Karpel. “And his Oscar acceptance speech, in which he eloquently honored two gay men who were influential in his life, sent an essential message during a time of crisis.”

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Cholodenko, director of “Olive Kitteridge,” will be honored with the Visionary Award, which recognizes contributions to LGBT media visibility. Her body of work includes 2010’s “The Kids Are All Right,” which she directed and which earned her an Oscar nomination for co-writing the screenplay.

“When Lisa Cholodenko burst onto the independent film scene with ‘High Art,’ we were thrilled by her commitment to depicting a lesbian relationship with such unwavering veracity,” read a statement from Outfest’s interim executive director, Christopher Racster. “However, it was ‘The Kids Are All Right’ that made the biggest impact, showing the world that LGBT parenting is just as joyful, complicated and challenging as straight parenting.”

Previous Legacy Award winners include Armistead Maupin, Hilary Swank, Lee Daniels, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, and Paris Barclay.

This year’s Legacy Awards ceremony will take place Nov. 5 at Vibiana in downtown Los Angeles.

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