Jodie Foster is the latest filmmaker recipient of the honorary Palme d’Or award at this summer’s Cannes Film Festival.
The actress-director-producer will receive the tribute during the festival’s opening ceremony on July 6, where she will also be the guest of honor.
The Palme d’Or recognizes filmmakers’ career achievements, as well as their commitment to major issues. Cannes selected Foster, who has won two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for what they called her “brilliant artistic journey, a unique personality with a modest yet strong commitment to some of the major issues of our time.
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Cannes president Pierre Lescure added, “Jodie Foster has provided us with an amazing gift by coming to celebrate the return of the festival on the Croisette. Her aura is unparalleled: she embodies modernity, the radiant intelligence of independence and the need for freedom.”
In response to the news that she’ll be receiving this year’s Palme d’Or honor, the BAFTA Award-winning filmmaker noted that Cannes “is a festival to which I owe so much; it has completely changed my life…I am flattered that Cannes thought of me and I am very honored to be able to share a few words of wisdom or tell an adventure or two with a new generation of filmmakers.
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The Emmy Award-nominated performer first traveled to the festival in 1976, when she was only 13-years-old, to attended the world premiere of Taxi Driver, which won the Palme d’Or. Throughout her subsequent career, she went on to have six more movies, as both an actress and director, presented at Cannes.
Foster, who won the Golden Globe this year for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture for The Mauritanian, is the latest filmmaker to receive the Palme d’Or during Cannes. The honorary prize has previously been given to Jeanne Moreau, Bernardo Bertolucci, Jane Fonda, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Manoel de Oliveira, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Agnès Varda and Alain Delon.