Film director Godard scoops special award in Cannes
Cate Blanchett and Cinematographer Fabrice Aragno present the Palme d'Or to the absent Jean-Luc Godard.
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Swiss-French movie director Jean-Luc Godard was awarded a special Palme d’Or to honour both his film Image Book and his decades-long contribution to cinema at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival on Saturday.
Jury president Cate Blanchett said the 87-year-old had “constantly redefined cinema” during his career and that Image Book “almost sat apart from the other films, almost outside time and space”. The media-shy director did not attend the ceremony and remotely conducted a press conference last week via social media.
Godard, a Swiss national since 1953, was born in Paris to a Swiss father and a French mother. He first won international renown in 1960 for his first full-length feature Breathless, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg.
He has made well over 40 films and video experiments, including other well-received films such as Sympathy for the Devil, and Goodbye to Language.
At the 71st Cannes Film FestivalExternal link, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-Eda took home the main Palme d’Or prize for his movie Shoplifters and director Spike Lee won the Grand Prix for BlacKkKlansman.
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Homage to a master of New Wave Cinema
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Godard was born in Paris on December 3, 1930 to Swiss parents and studied ethnology at the Sorbonne. After having worked as a film critic, he made his first short film on the construction of the Grande Dixence Dam in Switzerland in 1955. In 1960 he burst onto the international stage with his first full-length…
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Godard to receive Swiss film award in Geneva
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French-Swiss film director Jean-Luc Godard has been chosen to receive the 2015 Swiss Film Honorary Award in March in Geneva
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However, Godard – known for films like Breathless and Sympathy for the Devil – has told the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that he will not attend the ceremony. “He reiterated his thanks for the award,” Academy president Tom Sherak said in a statement, “and also sent his good wishes to the other…
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