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Jodie Foster, queen of “Sugar Kings”


Vince Bucci/Getty Images
Jodie Foster honoring designer Giorgio Armani
Los Angeles / AFP
07/29/05

Jodie Foster, 42, who first sprang to worldwide fame three decades ago as a child prostitute in "Taxi Driver," has signed on to direct the movie "Sugar Kings," being produced by Tribeca Films for Universal Pictures.

The movie, based on a Vanity Fair magazine article, tells the story of a young lawyer who takes on powerful American sugar barons who exploit immigrant sugar cane cutters, industry bible Daily Varity reported.

The Vanity Fair article focuses on Alfy and Pepe Fanjul, who owned a sugar-manufacturing empire in Florida and are hounded by an attorney who accused the brothers of treating 20,000 sugar cane cutters as slave labor.

The movie will be written by Ned Zeman and Daniel Barnz and will be produced by Jane Rosenthal, who runs Tribeca Films along with screen icon Robert De Niro, Foster's "Taxi Driver" co-star.

Foster, who has won two best actress Oscars for 1987's "The Accused" and 1991's "Silence of the Lambs," in which she played an FBI investigator, has only acted in one film since 2002, the French movie "A Very Long Engagement."

However she is emerging from her quiet period with a roar, having just completed "Flight Plan," co-starring Denzel Washington and Clive Owen, for Universal and is currently filming Spike Lee's new movie "The Inside Man."

Foster has previously directed four movies including "Little Man Tate" (1991) and "Home for the Holidays" (1995).