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"An exercise in survival": Jodie Foster Received the Award for Artistic Excellence

Gustavo R. Gallardo

History had been waiting for Jodie Foster long before she arrived in the city of Morelia, since around 1991. From the moment she steps foot on the red carpet of the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM), the audience and the screams greet her like flowers. She doesn't look like a movie star, she even moves away from the spotlight when possible. Instead, she approaches the audience, signs autographs, and smiles; her eyes twinkling behind blue-tinted glasses. She walks the red carpet like a lamb, this is only the beginning because while she has time for everyone, history always awaits Jodie Foster.
 

The actress was honored by the President of the festival, Alejandro Ramírez, and the founder and General Director, Daniela Michel, with the Award for Artistic Excellence at Cinépolis Morelia Centro, where she presented a special screening of The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Jodie Foster takes the sculpture made by Michoacan artist Javier Marín, thanks the city that has welcomed her so warmly and something inside her cracks. She covers her mouth, moved by this and the commemorative video screened at the event.

"This work has been an exercise in survival," says the actress and film director.

Touched, she talks about all the women she has portrayed throughout her career and how they have all had to face "the shame, the longing, and they've had to survive." 
 
Foster said that while acting could feel like running around like a headless chicken, it has actually been a healing experience." 

Jodie Foster, who is about to turn 61, maintains that life gets even better at that age. "This beautiful man, who knows what he is doing," she said of the award, adding that it was a very good representation of how everything has been a process of healing and growth.
 
She then presented The Silence of the Lambs, a film that, she stressed, "has stayed in all of our psyches and is still relevant."
 
"When I read the book on which the film is based, I knew I had to be a part of it," Foster assured.