Claude Lelouch To Be Feted With Cartier Glory To The Filmmaker Award In Venice

French director Claude Lelouch will be celebrated with the the Cartier Glory To The Filmmaker Award at the upcoming 81st Venice Film Festival, running from August 28 to September 7.

He follows in the footsteps of Wes Anderson who was last year’s recipient of the award, dedicated to a personality who has made a particularly original contribution to the contemporary film industry.

The award ceremony  will take place on September 2 ahead of the world premiere in an Out of Competition screening of Lelouch’s new work Finalement, starring an ensemble cast featuring Kad Merad, Elsa Zylberstain, Michel Boujenah, Sandrine Bonnaire, Barbara Pravi and Françoise Gillard. 

One of France’s best loved directors, Lelouch first broke out internationally with his 1966 Oscar and Cannes Palme d’Or-winning romance A Man and a Woman, starring Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant as a widow and widower whose fledgling love story is held back by past personal tragedies.

Lelouch’s more than 60 feature film credits also include Money Money Money, Happy New Year, Itinerary of a Spoiled Child,  The Beautiful Story, 

“Claude Lelouch is one of the top directors of French cinema, an excellent interpreter of its ‘quality,’ albeit alien to its main currents; he is also a very prolific filmmaker, having directed over sixty feature films,” said Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera.

“Lelouch has left an indelible mark on the cinema of his time, above all by capturing the taste and the favor of the public. An atypical and unclassifiable filmmaker, he likes to contaminate genres (dramas, comedies, crime films, adventure movies, westerns, science fiction, musicals, war movies, and historical settings) and doesn’t hesitate to shuffle conventions, creating unorthodox narrative and temporal structures,” he added.

Cyrille Vigneron, President and CEO of Cartier, said Lelouch’s career resembled “a symphony played out across a lifetime.”

“His filmography spans over sixty-four years, with many awards winning films, including the mythical pairing of Jean Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimée, who incarnate for eternity the romantic couple, and have brought to the world, thanks to Francis Lai, Lelouch partner in crime, an unforgettable soundtrack. ‘Chabadabada’ has been hummed by an entire generation and is part of the cinema music mythos,” he said.  

Lelouch’s new film Finalement is produced by Les Films 13 and co-produced by France 2 Cinéma and Laurent Dassault Rond-Point, with the support of Canal + and with the participation of Ciné + e France Télévisions. French Distribution: Metropolitan Filmexport.