CANNES, France — Last month, Kelly Reichardt became the 20th filmmaker, the sixth American and the fourth woman to receive the Carrosse d'Or (or the Golden Coach), presented annually by France's Society of Film Directors. Accepting the award onstage here in Cannes, the 58-year-old Reichardt said that when she was a Florida teenager first setting out to pursue her filmmaking dreams, her mother gave her a book with an image of a woman holding a movie camera on the cover. Inside, her mom had written an inscription: "Maybe someday, this woman's story can be your story too."
The book, Reichardt revealed onstage, was a biography of the notorious Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl.
As the audience laughter subsided, Reichardt went on, "I didn't really learn how to figure out this filmmaking life from any book. It was just something that I was making up and forging on my own, and along the way picking up these amazing comrades."
