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Lucas to Receive 33rd AFI Life Achievement Award June 9

The Force is definitely with George Lucas: On the heels of the record breaking box office results from the first week of his last STAR WARS saga, EPISODE III REVENGE OF THE SITH, Lucas will receive the American Film Institute's (AFI) 33rd Life Achievement Award on June 9, at a gala event. Filmmaker, friend and past recipient Steven Spielberg will present Lucas with the award at the tribute, which will be held at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. THE 33rd AFI LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: A TRIBUTE TO GEORGE LUCAS will air on USA Network on June 20, at 9:00 p.m. (ET/PT).

The event will feature tributes from a number of Lucas' friends and colleagues, including Richard Dreyfuss, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, past recipients Tom Hanks and Harrison Ford, as well as intergalactic celebrities C3PO, Chewbacca and R2D2. Additionally, clips from Lucas' films will be presented with commentary from four Academy Award-winning directors: Spielberg, James Cameron, Ron Howard and Peter Jackson.

During the past 33 years, AFI's Life Achievement Award has become the highest honor for a career in film. As the first award in the film community to acknowledge career achievement, the honor has been bestowed upon many of the greatest film artists in history such as Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Clint Eastwood, Hanks, Barbra Streisand, Ford, Dustin Hoffman, Steven Spielberg, Jack Nicholson, Elizabeth Taylor, Sidney Poitier, Gregory Peck, Barbara Stanwyck, Billy Wilder, Fred Astaire, James Stewart, Alfred Hitchcock, Bette Davis, Orson Welles, James Cagney and John Ford.

THE 33rd AFI LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: A TRIBUTE TO GEORGE LUCAS is executive produced and written by Bob Gazzale and directed and co-produced by Louis J. Horvitz. The event is sponsored by Microsoft.

AFI (www.afi.com) is a national institute providing leadership in screen education and the recognition and celebration of excellence in the art of film, television and digital media. AFI trains the next generation of filmmakers at its world-renowned Conservatory, maintains America's film heritage through the AFI Catalog of Feature Films and explores new digital technologies in entertainment and education through AFI's New Media Ventures. As the largest nonprofit exhibitor in the U.S., AFI ON SCREEN encompasses the annual AFI FEST presented by Audi: AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival and SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, while offering year-round programming at ArcLight Hollywood and the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. AFI AWARDS, the annual almanac for the 21st century, honors the most outstanding motion pictures and television programs of the year, while AFI's 100 YEARS series has ignited extraordinary public interest in classic American movies.

USA Network (www.usanetwork.com) is one of cable television's leading provider of original series and feature movies, sports events, off-net television shows and blockbuster theatrical films. USA Network is available in 82% of all U.S. homes and is seen in more than 88 million U.S. homes. USA Network is a program service of NBC Universal Cable a division of NBC Universal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news and information to a global audience.

Bill Desowitz's picture

Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.

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