Hollywood Legend Jodie Foster to Appear at Sun Valley Film Festival

Jodie Foster, Academy Award-winning actress and recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2012 Golden Globe Awards for her outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment, will be a featured guest at the 2013 Sun Valley Film Festival, March 14-17 in Sun Valley, Idaho, presented by Zions Bank. The Festival will feature over 50 curated cutting-edge films, TV premieres, special children's programming, fabulous parties, engaging coffee talks with industry insiders, intimate filmmaker dinners, après ski gatherings, a screenwriters lab, a spectacular closing awards ceremony and more.

At the Festival, Foster will present during one of the featured Coffee Talks on the morning of Sunday, March 17. During this free and informal gathering she will discuss her long and varied career and answer questions from the audience. Foster will also present the Sun Valley Film Festival Vision Award during the Alaska Airlines Après Ski Closing Awards Ceremony on Sunday evening. The Vision Award is given to recognize a special filmmaker and their filmmaking journey.

We are thrilled to have Jodie join us this year," exclaimed Sun Valley Film Festival executive director Teddy Grennan. "Although the festival is only in its second year, the interest we have been generating from filmmakers around the globe, from industry visionaries like Jodie, and from movie lovers across the country has been remarkable."

Foster is a fan of Sun Valley and eager to participate. "I love Sun Valley and am happy to support this new film festival that is building on the incredible heritage of a beautiful place," she remarked.

The idyllic mountain resort setting of Sun Valley, the original ski town steeped in Hollywood history, provides a truly unique location for this lauded new film festival. When Sun Valley Resort opened its doors in 1936, celebrities flocked to play at the glamorous new winter wonderland and Hollywood's love affair with "America's first destination ski resort" began. To celebrate the area's old school Hollywood heritage and bring it into the 21st century, the inaugural Sun Valley Film Festival was launched in March 2012 and was an instant success.

Jodie Foster has had one of the most substantial film careers in Hollywood history, with 50 feature films to her credit as actor or director, multiple Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations and two Academy Awards for Best Actress for her roles in The Accused and Silence of the Lambs. Foster is one of the most respected actresses working today, and the Sun Valley Film Festival is honored to have her support and involvement as a featured guest this year.

For details and tickets: http://www.sunvalleyfilmfestival.org. Get Festival updates on Facebook and Twitter.

Sun Valley Film Festival major sponsors include Zions Bank, Alaska Airlines and Nat Geo WILD.

Jodie Foster's stunning performances as a rape survivor in The Accused and as Special Agent Clarice Starling in the hit thriller The Silence of the Lambs earned her two Academy Awards for Best Actress and a reputation as one of the most critically acclaimed actresses of her generation.

Foster began her career at age three, appearing as "The Coppertone Girl" in the television commercial. She then went on to become a regular on a number of television series, including "Mayberry RFD," "The Courtship of Eddie's Father," "My Three Sons" and "Paper Moon." She made her feature debut in Napoleon and Samantha when she was eight years old.

But it was her role in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1975), which brought her to the audience's attention, and her powerful portrayal of a streetwise teenager in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) that won her widespread critical praise and international attention. Foster appeared in a total of four films in 1976, Bugsy Malone, Echoes of Summer, Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane and Taxi Driver, which were all presented at the Cannes Film Festival. Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone, earned her an Italian Comedy Award.

In total, Foster has appeared in more than 40 films, including recent films Carnage for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination; Nim's Island with Gerard Butler; The Brave One for director Neil Jordan for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination; Inside Man with Denzel Washington and Clive Owen; the box-office hit Flightplan; Jean Pierre Jeunet's French language film, A Very Long Engagement; David Fincher's box-office success, Panic Room; Anna and the King for director Andy Tenant, Contact for director Robert Zemeckis; Nell opposite Liam Neeson; The Comedy Maverick opposite Mel Gibson and James Garner and the romantic drama Sommersby opposite Richard Gere.

Other select motion picture credits include Woody Allen's stylized black and white comedy Shadows and Fog; Siesta; Stealing Home; Five Corners; as well as earlier films Tom Sawyer; Freaky Friday; Adrian Lyne's Foxes; Tony Richardson's The Hotel New Hampshire and Claude Chabrol's The Blood of Others, for which the multi-lingual Foster looped all of her own dialogue in French.

For her role in The Silence of the Lambs, Foster was also awarded a Golden Globe Award, a British Academy Award, a New York Film Critics Award and a Chicago Film Critics Award. Foster received her first Oscar nomination and awards from the National Society of Film Critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics for her role in Taxi Driver. She also became the only American actress to win two separate awards in the same year from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts - Best Supporting Actress and Best Newcomer honoring her performances in both Taxi Driver and Bugsy Malone.

Most recently Foster completed filming Elysium opposite Matt Damon for director Neil Blomkamp.

In addition to her acting, Foster has always had a keen interest in the art of filmmaking.

Foster made her motion picture directorial debut in 1991 with the highly acclaimed Little Man Tate, in which she also starred. In 1995, Foster directed her second film, Home for the Holidays, which she also produced. The film starred Holly Hunter, Anne Bancroft and Robert Downey Jr. Her most recent film, The Beaver, which stars Mel Gibson, was released in 2011.

Foster founded Egg Pictures in 1992 and the company produced Nell (1994), for which Foster earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress; Home for the Holidays (1995); the Showtime telefilm The Baby Dance (1998) which received a Peabody Award, four Emmy Award nominations and three Golden Globe Award nominations; as well as USA Films' Waking the Dead, directed by Keith GorDon Starring Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connelly. In 1996, Egg presented the award-winning French film Hate (L'Haine) in the United States. Foster and Egg Pictures also produced The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2001).

Foster graduated with honors from Yale University in 1985, earning a B.A. in literature.