Actress Isabelle Huppert will receive the 2024 Lumière Prize at the next Lyon film festival

Isabelle Huppert is rewarded “for all of her work”: “her career embraces an immense part of the history of contemporary cinema”, announced the organizers of the Lyon festival

French actress and producer Isabelle Huppert, aged 71, will receive the Lumière Prize, announced Thursday June 27, the organizers of the Lyon International Film Festival which takes place from October 12 to 20. “Isabelle Huppert is one of the most famous and celebrated French actresses in the world”they greet in a press release. “His career embraces an immense part of the history of contemporary cinema”.

With this Lumière Prize which will be awarded to her on October 18, Isabelle Huppert succeeds German director Wim Wenders, winner in 2023. Two other actresses have received it: Jane Fonda in 2018 and Catherine Deneuve in 2016.

“It’s a magnificent prize, just like its festival. And it’s a prize that bears the name of the inventors of cinema! Receiving it is a joy and a pride”the actress told the festival organizers.

Created by Thierry Frémaux, general director of the Institut Lumière and general delegate of the Cannes festival, this award celebrates “a personality of cinema for all of her work and the link she maintains with the history of cinema”. Since its creation in 2009, the Lumière Festival has become one of the major festivals of international cinema.

Favorite actress of Claude Chabrol, who directed her seven times, Isabelle Huppert won the Best Actress Prize at Cannes at the age of 25 in 1978 for her role in his film Violette Nozièrefirst collaboration with the French director.

Along with two other of their films, A women’s affair (1988) and Ceremony (1995), she was crowned in Venice. His second acting prize at Cannes was for The Pianist, by Michael Haneke (2001). In 2009, she was president of the jury there.

“Capable of going from a sophisticated comedy to a demanding auteur film”the actress has filmed with many big names in French and European cinema: Jean-Luc Godard, Claire Denis, Bertrand Tavernier, Diane Kurys, Maurice Pialat, Catherine Breillat, François Ozon, André Téchiné, Andrzej Wajda… “Her insatiable curiosity and her taste for unique experiences led her to the United States, where she starred in the legendary Heaven’s Door (1980) by Michael Cimino, but also more recently to the Philippines and South Korea where she plays under the direction of Brillante Mendoza and Hong Sang-soo”reminds the festival team again.

Isabelle Huppert was twice awarded the César for best actress, for Ceremony And She by Paul Verhoeven (2017), and the latter film also earned him a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination.