Brad Pitt and Girlfriend Ines de Ramon Have Date Night at Santa Barbara Film Festival

Brad Pitt and Ines de Ramon had a celebratory night on Thursday.

The couple stepped out together at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, where Pitt, 60, honored friend Bradley Cooper with the outstanding performer of the year award at an event sponsored by DAOU Vineyards.

In photos published by HELLO!, Pitt and de Ramon, 34, can be seen sitting next to one another in the audience, directly behind Cooper, 49, and his Maestro costar Carey Mulligan.

Pitt donned a dark-brown suit for the evening at the Arlington Theater, while his girlfriend looked glam as she rocked a high-neck teal halter dress. One photo showed the Bullet Train actor leaning in to a smiling de Ramon, appearing to whisper something in her ear.

A source who attended the event tells PEOPLE that Pitt "was very low-key last night and skipped the red carpet during arrivals," and when he showed up to honor Cooper, "the crowd went crazy with excitement."

"He seemed to be in very good spirits onstage when he presented the award to Bradley and poked fun at his friend, joking that he was just here for the free trip to Santa Barbara," the source adds.

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Pitt and de Ramon, a jewelry designer, were first spotted together in November 2022, and sources told PEOPLE at the time that the couple had already been dating for "a few months."

When the Oscar winner turned 60 in December of the following year, de Ramon joined him and his friends for a "very low key" celebration while he had some time off from filming his racing movie, a source told PEOPLE.

After Pitt and de Ramon spent his birthday together, a source told PEOPLE the actor "seems more relaxed than before" and that he and de Ramon "seem very comfortable" together.

"He's certainly more at ease than he has been in the past few years," the source said at the time.

On Thursday, Pitt presented Cooper with one of the Santa Barbara Film Festival's top honors, outstanding performer of the year, for his work starring as Leonard Bernstein in the biopic Maestro, which he also directed and co-wrote.

"Now, I'm not gonna say I know for certain what's at the heart of Bradley's brilliance, but I am going to take a stab at it," Pitt said during his speech, in part. "What I think it is is his voracious love for this little thing we call the human experience and all its struggles and joys and messiness. My man's in it, he doesn't run from any evidence and I think it's that that he infused into each frame that he puts up on the screen."

Pitt rounded out his speech by sharing his hopes for Cooper's success at the upcoming Academy Awards, where Maestro is up for seven Oscars including Best Picture; Mulligan, 38, for Best Actress; and Cooper for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay (the latter shared with co-writer Josh Singer).

"He's been nominated 12 times and I really, really hope that this is his year, because he's willing, but if it's not, it's okay, everyone knows it's just a matter of time," said Pitt, calling Cooper "the one and only Bradley" before going on to joke, "And truly Brad is okay, he's fine. He's used to it. He's a Philadelphia Eagles fan."

"I didn't like what you said there," joked Cooper as he accepted the award from Pitt.