from psiff

PALM SPRINGS, CA (November 29, 2010) – The 22nd annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will present Academy Award winner Robert Duvall with the Career Achievement Award at its Awards Gala. Presented by Cartier, the Awards Gala will kick off the 2011 awards season on Saturday, January 8 at the Palm Springs Convention Center and will be hosted by Entertainment Tonight’s Mary Hart. Duvall will join previously announced honorees Javier Bardem, Colin Firth, Jennifer Lawrence, Carey Mulligan and Natalie Portman. The Festival runs January 6-17.

“For nearly 50 years, Robert Duvall has transfixed cinematic audiences with his gritty, intuitive performances,” said Film Festival chairman Harold Matzner. “In Get Low, his most recent role, Duvall portrays a backwoodsman who stages his own funeral while still alive. Duvall gives a virtuoso performance, challenging audiences to understand his character who is caught between myth and reality. To this star, a star in every sense of the word and tradition, the Palm Springs International Film Festival is proud to present the 2010 Career Achievement Award to Robert Duvall.”

Past recipients of the Career Achievement Award include Cate Blanchett, Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson and Helen Mirren.

Duvall was most recently seen as Felix Bush in Sony Pictures Classics, Get Low. A magical and moving blend of folk tale, fable and real-life legend, Get Low is a movie spun in the Southern storytelling tradition about the mysterious 1930s Tennessee hermit who famously threw his own rollicking funeral party, while he was still alive. Academy Award® winner Robert Duvall, Golden Globe winner Bill Murray, Academy Award® winner Sissy Spacek and Lucas Black form an ensemble of unforgettable characters who bring to life the surprising last act of Felix Bush, a life-long maverick and misfit who has been nearly swallowed up by the power of his town’s sinister myths about him – until he sets out to make a shocking confession in front of his own memorial service.

Respected by his peers and adored by audiences worldwide, he has earned numerous Oscar nominations for his performances in The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, The Great Santini and The Apostle. Duvall won the Academy Award as Best Actor for his role in Tender Mercies, and has earned Golden Globes for his performances in Apocalypse Now, Tender Mercies, Lonesome Dove and Stalin. More recently, Duvall was honored with an Emmy Award for his iconic portrayal of ‘Print Ritter’ in AMC‘s Broken Trail.

Past honorees of the Desert Palm Achievement Actor Award include Jeff Bridges, Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Penn, Jake Gyllenhaal, Liam Neeson, Nicolas Cage, John Travolta and James Stewart.

Duvall made his big screen debut in 1962, as the creepy ‘Boo Radley’ in To Kill A Mockingbird. He has gone on to star in such classics as Assassination Tango, The Apostle, Bullitt, True Grit, M*A*S*H, The Conversation, Network, The Natural, Colors, Days Of Thunder, A Handmaid’s Tale, Rambling Rose, Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, Phenomenon, A Civil Action, Open Range, and Thank You For Smoking, among many others.

For more information please visit: www.psfilmfest.org.