French star Jean-Paul Belmondo is to receive a special tribute at the 64th annual Cannes Film Festival.
A
special day-long celebration of the 77-year-old actor's life and work
will be held on May 17, culminating with the premiere of the
documentary Belmondo: The Career.
The festival's
chairman Gilles Jacob and General Delegate Thierry Frémaux praised
Belmondo in an official statement, citing him as one of the most
acclaimed legends in the history of French cinema.
"We are
delighted that he has agreed to attend this gala evening in celebration
of his talent and career," Jacob and Frémaux wrote. "His range and
personal charisma, the precision of his acting, his cocky wit, the ease
with which he carries himself have made him, along with Jean Gabin and
Michel Simon, one of the greatest French actors of all time, a fact to
which many films bear ample witness."
Belmondo is perhaps best
known as the most prominent star of the New Wave film movement in the
1960s, having burst onto the scene in Jean-Luc Godard's groundbreaking
1959 drama Breathless.
Besides working with Godard further on A Woman is a Woman and Pierrot le Fou,
the actor went on to collaborate with some of the most well-known
French filmmakers, including Francois Truffaut on the romance thriller Mississippi Mermaid, and Claude Lelouch on his World War II adaptation of Les Misérables.
It was previously announced that Robert De Niro will preside over the jury at this year's festival.
The 64th annual Cannes Film Festival will run from May 11 to May 22.
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