Ruth Negga has been honoured with the Virtuoso Award at the Santa Barbara Film Festival for her Oscar-nominated role in Loving.
The Irish-Ethiopian star was honoured alongside seven other actors including fellow Oscar nominees Naomie Harris (Moonlight), Mahershala Ali (Moonlight) and Dev Patel (Lion).
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Janelle Monae (Moonlight and Hidden Figures), Simon Helberg (Florence Foster Jenkins), Stephen McKinley Henderson (Fences) and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Nocturnal Animals) were also honoured with the Virtuoso Award, which salutes actors who gave breakthrough performances in film.
At the ceremony, Negga said she was glad to be trusted to portray one of America's "unknown heroes".
Speaking about the importance of the story behind Loving, Negga said the film "Isn't just a black story and it isn't just an American story. It's my story, and it's the world's story."
The former Love/Hate star is among this year's Best Actress Oscar nominees for her performance opposite Joel Edgerton in the Jeff Nichols-directed film, which tells the true story of an illegal inter-racial marriage in the US state of Virginia in the 1950s.
Richard and Mildred Loving eloped to Washington DC in 1958 but on their return home to Virginia they were arrested. They were sentenced to a year in prison, suspended for 25 years, on condition that they left Virginia.
Their case eventually reached the US Supreme Court, which in 1967 overturned the Lovings' convictions and ruled that state laws against interracial marriage were unconstitutional.
