french film producer Rebecca ZlotowskiWho just finished filming “We Privy” starring jodie foster In Paris, on January 16, he received the French Cinema Award at a packed ceremony held in a grand room of the Ministry of Culture.
The tribute, organized by film promotion organization UniFrance, was inaugurated by Gaëtan Bruel, chief of staff to Culture Minister Rachida Daati, as well as UniFrance president Gilles Pellicson and managing director Daniela Elstner.
Created in 2016, the French Cinema Award honors actors, filmmakers and producers who have contributed to shining French cinema abroad. Previous recipients include actors Juliette Binoche, Virginie Efira and Melville Poupaud, director Olivier Assayas and producers Étan Soumache and Dimitri Rassam.
Zlotowski, who is fully bilingual and has worked with a range of international talents from Natalie Portman to Lily Rose-Depp and most recently Foster, actively promotes each of his films as a screenwriter or filmmaker. Is doing. He has also displayed diversity in his work, giving single, non-stereotypical roles to actors from different ethnic and social backgrounds; And she was one of the founding members of the French feminist organization that promised to allow greater gender equality and transparency in its selection at international festivals such as Cannes.
A graduate of the prestigious École Normale Supérieure and the French cinema school La Fémis, Zlotowski first co-directed the short “Danse le rang”, which won the SACD Award at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 2006. For his graduation project at La Fémis, he wrote the screenplay for “Belle Épine”, which became his first feature film. The Afterlife premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week in 2010 and won the Prix Louis-Deluc for Best First Film. The film also earned Léa Seydoux a César nomination for Best Female Newcomer in 2011. Zlotowski then worked with Seydoux for her second film, “Grand Central”, which also starred Tahar Rahim and had its world premiere at Un Certain Regard in Cannes in 2013. His third film, “Planetarium”, starring Portman and Depp, premiered in Toronto and Venice in 2016 and was released in 25 countries. “An Easy Girl” starring Zahiya Dehar screened at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2019.
In 2022, he directed “Other People’s Children” starring Virginie Efira and Roshdi Zem. The film competed at Venice and sold approximately 400,000 admissions at the box office. It was distributed in about 40 areas.
Zlotowski has also achieved success on the small screen, including “Les Sauvages”, a political thriller series he directed and co-produced for Canal+. The series brought to the fore a new generation of actors, notably Dali Bensalah, Souhila Yacoub, Shawn Boumedine, Lina Khoudary and Sofiane Zarmani – many of whom were in attendance at the ceremony.
“It’s hard to receive this tribute, especially when you’re in the same room as all the other people mentioned, and when you look at the list of people who have received it before, it makes you very humble,” Zlotowski Said, who was joined by industry players such as his longtime producer Frédéric Jouve, influential banker Grégoire Chertoc, producer Marie-Ange Luciani, Benjamin Elaloff, Priscilla Bertin, Didar Domhéry, Along with this, other people also encouraged him. His father, Michel Zlotowski, a well-established interpreter, his stepmother and sister.
“Humility is a quality that, as everyone here knows, is not only extremely rare among filmmakers, but I would even say undesirable. Because you need shamelessness in this business and, dare I say it, this profession. “It’s shameless to imagine substituting your will for the world, always feeling a little uncertain, asking so much energy from others to raise so much money,” she continued.
Referring to the unexpected pitches of his own films, he quipped, “It will be the story of a girl near a motorcycle track. She falls in love at a nuclear power plant. A spontaneous girl’s warmth is wonderful, etc… As you can imagine, you always feel grateful to people who believe in it, and in my case, they have been like that from the beginning ,” Zlotowski said, quoting him. Producer, Frederic Jouve and distributor Alexandra Heinochsberg at Ad Vitam, as well as the actors they worked with, “Lia, Tahar, Natalie, Zahia, Virginie, Jody, Rochdi, Marina, Sofiane, Dali, Lina, Daniel, Vincent and Mathieu .
In his touching speech, Zlotowski also paid tribute to “the love of a family, a father, a mother who passed away at a young age, and a stepmother, a brother and a sister.” “My sister, Yael, who was always sure I would be successful in whatever I did, gave me a lot of confidence.”
Zlotowski’s next film, “We Privy” — starring Foster, Efira and Daniel Auteuil — will be released later this year and is expected to have its world premiere at a major festival.
The ceremony was held in Paris during Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, a week of screenings and meetings with international sellers and buyers organized each year by UniFrance.
