IFFI 50,VII: Isabelle Huppert to get Lifetime Achievement Award; 50 women’s films to be screened

One of the most famous and most popular French actresses of her generation, Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert will be conferred with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Golden Jubilee edition of International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Panaji, Goa, 2019.

This was announced by Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting, Shri Prakash Javadekar, in New Delhi yesterday.

The Union Minister further said that the 50th edition of IFFI will showcase fifty films of fifty women directors which reflect the contribution of women in cinema.

“Among the 200 foreign films which will be showcased at IFFI in Goa this year, 24 films are in the race for Oscar nominations”, informed Shri Javadekar

The Lifetime Achievement Award is the highest honour and the most prestigious award of the festival. The award carries a cash prize of INR 10,000,00/- .Huppert actor will be conferred this prestigious award for her “remarkable artistic skills and her outstanding journey and vivid contribution to Cinema”.

Born in 1955, in Paris, she studied at the Conservatory for Dramatic Art in Versailles, and also learnt oriental languages. Fragile and freckle-faced, she started working in films from the age of 16, in a bit role. The film was Faustine and the Beautiful Summer. International fame came with Claude Goretta’s The Lacemaker (1977), she followed it up by sharing the Best Actress Prize for her performance in Violette Nozière (1978), directed by Claude Chabrol. Other notable films of the period were Heaven’s Gate (1979), Coup de Foudre (1983), Loulou (1980), Coup de torchon (1981) and Story of Women (1988). The last mentioned brought her another shared prize: Best Actress, at Venice.

Later films include A Woman’s Revenge (1990) and Chabrol’s Madame Bovary (1991), based on the famous novel by Gustave Flaubert. Acclaim was garnered for La Séparation (1994) and a French César prize came with La Cérémonie (1996), and a solo Prize at Cannes came for The Piano Teacher (2001). She played a career woman dating a young bartender in L’École de la chair (1998; The School of Flesh). She tried her hand at comedy, with 8 femmes (2002; 8 Women), about a group of women (played by Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Béart, and Fanny Ardant, among others) who investigate a murder.

Other significant films of the period 2004-19 include

I Heart Huckabees (2004),

Gabrielle (2005),

L’Ivresse du pouvoir (2006),

Un Barrage contre le Pacifique (2008; The Sea Wall),

White Material (2009),

Tarŭn naraesŏ (2012; In Another Country),

Haneke’s Amour (2012),

Dead Man Down (2013),

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (2013–14),

Abus de faiblesse (2013; Abuse of Weakness),

La ritournelle (2014; Paris Follies),

Louder Than Bombs (2015),

Valley of Love (2015),

L’Avenir (2016; Things to Come),

Elle (2016): At age 61, she received her first Golden Globe Award as well as her first Academy Award nomination for Elle, directed by Paul Verhoeven.

Souvenir (2016),

Haneke’s Happy End, La caméra de Claire (Claire’s Camera), The Romanoffs (all 2017),

Greta (2018),

Frankie (2019).

Huppert has been working in films for 46 years and has acted in over 100 feature productions. She has two sons and a daughter.