Iconic French actress Isabelle Huppert will be honored at this year’s Lumière Festival in Lyon with the prestigious Lumière Award for her contribution to cinema.
“Her career encompasses an immense part of the history of contemporary cinema,” the Institut Lumière, which oversees the festival, said of the French star of Elle, 8 Women, and The Piano Teacher.
The institute gave just a sampling of Huppert’s more than 155 acting credits, which include collaborations with such French directing legends as Claude Chabrol, Claire Denis, François Ozon, and Bertrand Tavernier, as well as international filmmakers including Michael Haneke, Paul Verhoeven, and Hong Sang-soo. Her few U.S. films include Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980), David O. Russell’s I Heart Huckabees (2004), and Frankie (2019) by Ira Sachs.
Huppert’s Lumière Award will take its place alongside a trophy case of other honors, including two Cannes best actress prizes — for Violette Noziere (1978) and The Piano Teacher (2001) — two Venice Volpi Cup awards, for best actress in A Story of Women (1988) and La Cérémonie (1995), and a best actress Oscar nom for her performance in Verhoeven’s Elle. The French actress will be jury president at this year’s Venice Film Festival.
In every role, whether comedy or thriller or arthouse drama, the Institut Lumière noted, Huppert turns every character she plays into “a singular enigma that she enriches with her genuineness and irony.”
Thierry Frémaux, Cannes Film Festival delegate general, launched the Lumière Film Festival in 2009 and is also director of the Institut Lumière. The 16th edition of the festival runs Oct. 12-20.
