The legendary Clint Eastwood will be presented with the Career Achievement Award at the 20th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival. A highly respected director, actor and producer, Eastwood will be honored at the Awards Gala, hosted by Entertainment Tonight’s Mary Hart, on January 6, 2009.
Presented by Cartier, The Awards Gala will salute Clint Eastwood’s impressive career, which includes his most recent films, “Gran Torino”, which he stars in and directed, and “Changeling”, which he directed and produced and which stars Angelina Jolie.
Festival chairman Harold Matzner stated, “Clint Eastwood is a living legend who continually raises the bar of artistic expression with each new film, whether he is acting, directing, or producing. The Palm Springs International Film Festival is honored to present Eastwood with the Career Achievement Award for his extraordinary body of work.”
In 2007, Eastwood earned dual Academy Award® nominations, in the categories of Best Director and Best Picture, for his acclaimed World War II drama “Letters from Iwo Jima.” In addition, the film won the Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, and also received Best Picture honors from a number of film critics groups, including the Los Angeles Film Critics and the National Board of Review.
In 2005, Eastwood won Academy Awards® for Best Picture and Best Director (his second in both categories) for “Million Dollar Baby“. He also earned a nomination for Best Actor for his performance in the film. Eastwood’s critically acclaimed drama “Mystic River” debuted at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, earning him a Palme D’Or nomination and the Golden Coach Award. “Mystic River” went on to earn six Academy Award ® nominations, including two for Eastwood for Best Picture and Best Director. In 1993, Eastwood’s foreboding, revisionist western “Unforgiven,” received nine Academy Award® nominations, including three for Eastwood, who won for Best Picture and Best Director and was nominated for Best Actor. Eastwood was also honored with the Academy’s Irving Thalberg Memorial Award in 1995.
Other career highlights include, Eastwood receiving the Thalberg Award and DeMille Award, as well as receiving numerous tributes from the Directors Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, the American Film Institute, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the French Film Society, the National Board of Review, the Henry Mancini Institute (Hank Award for distinguished service to American music), the Hamburg Film Festival (Douglas Sirk Award), and Venice Film Festival (Career Golden Lion). He is also the recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor, awards from the American Cinema Editors and the Publicists’ Guild, an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from Wesleyan University, and is a five-time winner of Favorite Motion Picture Actor from the People’s Choice Awards. In 1991, Eastwood was Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Theatrical Society’s Man of the Year and, in 1992, he received the California Governor’s Award for the Arts.
Eastwood’s next project will see him directing and producing a post-apartheid drama set in South Africa, starring Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela.
The Palm Springs International Film Festival (founded by then Mayor Sonny Bono in 1990) will include over 400 screenings of more than 200 films from roughly 60 countries. The Festival presents a majority of the films submitted for consideration in the Best Foreign Language category for the Academy Awards, as well as a large number of American independent and international features and documentaries marking their world, North American or U.S. debuts. Screenings are held on 15 screens throughout Palm Springs.
The Palm Springs Inervational Film Festival runs from January 6 – 19, 2009. The Festival’s 20th Annual Awards Gala is presented by Cartier and sponsored by Mercedes Benz and Entertainment Tonight. Renewing sponsors of this year’s Festival are Title Sponsor, The City of Palm Springs and Presenting Sponsors, The Desert Sun, the City of Indian Wells, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, Spencer’s Restaurant, and Wessman Development. Major Sponsors include Bank of America, Integrated Wealth Management, Guthy-Renker, Regal Entertainment, Wells Fargo, Palm Desert National Bank, KPSP, Ocean Properties Development, Ciroc, Johnnie Walker and Don Julio.
For more information go to www.psfilmfest.org.
