MUMBAI: The United States has honoured Steven Spielberg with the Liberty medal, given to those personalities whose actions stand for the founding principles of the country. The filmmaker was marked for "inspiring millions to better understand the abiding call of liberty".
Spielberg received the medal, which was first established in 1988, from the hands of former President Bill Clinton in a ceremony.
"We honour a man today who has always been able to make a simple story and make it scary, make a simple story and make it interesting, and make a simple story and remind us of the greatness in us all," Clinton was quoted as saying.
The director had followed his Oscar winning film Schindler‘s List in 1994 by establishing ‘The Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation‘ to produce video and oral histories of Holocaust survivors.
It is now reported that Spielberg has decided to donate the Liberty Medal‘s 100,000-dollar-cash prize to the foundation.