French actress Catherine Deneuve was awarded the Golden Lion lifetime achievement award at this year’s Venice International Film Festival, which opened on Wednesday night. France is well represented this year with no less than five films in competition. The winners will be announced on 10 September.
“It is a joy to receive this prestigious award at the Venice Festival, which I love and have known for a long time,” Deneuve, 78, told reporters.
The festival, also known as the Mostra, is a second home to Deneuve, who has presented several films there over the years.
The latest, "The Truth", by Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, opened at the 2019 festival.
Deneuve also chaired the jury of the 63rd Mostra, in 2006.
In 1998, she received the Volpi cup for best actress for "Place Vendôme" by Nicole Garcia.
Referred to fondly in Italy as “la Deneuve”, she has shot a dozen films in the country since the 1960s and she also speaks Italian.
She formed a glamorous on and off screen couple with actor Marcello Mastroianni, with whom she had a daughter, Chiara.
She was rewarded in Rome with a David di Donatello – the Italian equivalent of the César – for the best foreign actress for "The Last Metro" by François Truffaut (1980).
Celebrating its 79th edition, the world’s oldest film festival has become a springboard for the Oscars.
In total, 23 feature films (eight by female directors) are in competition for the Golden Lion.
French authors in spotlight
Twenty years after having won the interpretation prize there for "Far from paradise", American actress Julianne Moore is presiding over the six-member jury in Venice this year.
By her side, Audrey Diwan, the French director who won the Golden Lion last year, the Iranian Leila Hatami (seen in "A Separation" by Asghar Farhadi) and the Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen.
French filmmakers are not to be outdone in the selection, with Rebecca Zlotowski presenting “Les Enfants des Autres”, Romain Gavras with “Athena”, Roschdy Zem with “Les Miens” and Alice Diop with “Saint Omer”.
Playwright Florian Zeller who, after the success of "The Father", with Anthony Hopkins is to present "The Son", another adaptation of one of his plays, this time with Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern.
The competition opened on Wednesday night with the official screening of "White Noise", directed by New Yorker Noah Baumbach, adapted from one of writer Don DeLillo's seminal novels.
Starring Greta Gerwig and Adam Driver it is a new mark of recognition for Netflix, which produced the film. The online streaming platform has no less than four films and a series being shown at the festival.
Marilyn Monroe
Among the other highlights, the expected arrival of a cohort of Hollywood stars, such as Cate Blanchett for "Tár" by Todd Field.
Franco-American actor Timothée Chalamet, who won the applause meter on the red carpet last year for "Dune", is back for "Bones and All", the new film by Luca Guadagnino, the author of "Call Me By Your Name".
One of the most anticipated stars at the turn is probably the Cuban actress Ana de Armas, noticed in James Bond girl last year and who takes up the challenge of interpreting Marilyn Monroe, sixty years after her death.
This biopic, by Andrew Dominik ("The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"), promises to cause a sensation, with a feminist reinterpretation of the life of the cinema icon, based on the story of the same title, " Blonde", by novelist Joyce Carol Oates.
Also eagerly awaited by moviegoers, the new films by Alejandro González Iñárritu ("The Revenant", "Birdman"), in a return to Mexico's roots, Darren Aronofsky ("Requiem for a Dream", "Pi"), Joanna Hogg, with the magnetic Tilda Swinton on the bill, and the Iranian Jafar Panahi.
French media group Canal+, tasked with broadcasting the opening and closing ceremonies, became the exclusive partner of the Mostra after being replaced by France Télévisions and Brut at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
