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Alejandro Ramírez, president of the FICM, speaks in honor of Robert Redford

Today the Morelia International Film Festival has the honor of welcoming one of cinema’s true icons: actor, director, and producer Robert Redford. As an actor, Robert Redford’s prodigious career spans 81 films. He has created some of cinema’s most memorable characters and has starred in movies that have become classics, including Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (which this year celebrates its 50th anniversary), The Sting, All The President’s Men, The Natural, Out Of Africa, and All Is Lost, to name just a few. His body of work is remarkable not only for his stunning performances, but also for the type of roles he has selected throughout his career, characters that defied convention and explored the complexity of human nature.

However, Robert Redford's legacy goes far beyond his work as an actor. He is the director of many outstanding films including The Milagro Beanfield War, A River Runs Through It, Quiz Show, The Legend Of Bagger Vance, and Ordinary People, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1980. The stories he has sought to tell explore human conflict, moral dilemmas, and the quest for redemption. He has also earned recognition as a producer of several of his own films, as well as films by other directors, including THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES by Walter Salles. In 2004, that film was presented by Gael García Bernal as the opening film of the second edition of Morelia; it was a great gift to our fledgling festival for which we will always be grateful.

And of course, Robert Redford knows a thing or two about film festivals; in fact, he is nothing less than a film festival visionary. In 1981, he founded the Sundance Institute, an organization devoted to the mission of promoting independent artists in the realms of cinema, theater, and film music. In 1985, the Institute founded the Sundance Film Festival, which has become the most important platform for independent filmmakers and one of the main events in the world of cinema. Sundance has shed light on and given voice to many creators who might otherwise have gone unnoticed. And it has launched the careers of hundreds of filmmakers, from Joel and Ethan Coen, Steven Soderbergh, Robert Rodriguez, and Jim Jarmusch to Darren Aronofsky, Miranda July, Ryan Coogler, Damien Chazelle, Robert Eggers, and Matt Heineman, to name only a handful. In one sentence, Sundance is a creative hub for emerging film, media, and theater artists, a non-profit organization whose various programs share the common purpose of discovering, supporting, and inspiring independent filmmakers, and introducing audiences to their new work.

For the Morelia International Film Festival, it has been a privilege to work with the Sundance Institute for a third consecutive year in conducting the Morelia Sundance Story Lab, which has helped over twenty filmmakers from Mexico and Latin America to strengthen their storytelling capabilities and improve their works in progress. And on a personal note, it has been one of the greatest privileges of my life to be a member of the Sundance Institute’s Board, and thus to witness the generosity of its efforts and the sincerity of its mission to make the world a better place through the power of story-telling and artistic expression. This magnificent endeavor would not have been possible without the drive, creativity, and passionate vision of the man to whom we pay fond tribute tonight. The Morelia International Film Festival is deeply honored to present this Lifetime Achievement Award to Robert Redford.