“I am very happy and proud of this award to be back at the Venice Film Festival where I have been many other times. My history with the festival is long, I have many good memories. And I’m still here and it’s a success because I still want to work for cinema, my, our world.” Thus, French actress Catherine Deneuve, in a long fiery red dress, welcomed the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement presented to her tonight by the President of the Venice Biennale, Roberto Cicutto, in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido during the opening ceremony of the 79th edition .
The reason for the award was formulated with a laudation read by the French director and screenwriter Arnaud Desplechin. “Dear Catherine, She came out of competition to the Venice Film Festival in 1964 with the film ‘Les Parapluies de Cherbourg’. And it was a revolution. Even the children know it: it is a revolution. Our flag, same flag as Marilyn. She has become self-aware and there is nothing more beautiful. It is this self-conquest that is admirable. With Demy she was moved to tears, I can still see her on the platform. This train station, yesterday, today… She never stopped being moved. Insane. And it is above all the love of cinema that I want to share with her. Only cinema, irreducible … “.
“I don’t know any woman or man who loves cinema so passionately. She is my heroine, my hero – said Arnaud Desplechin – I once wrote that she, Catherine Deneuve, is one of the most important filmmakers I know. I thought so and I still think so. At the risk of making her blush, Catherine, she has invented an ensemble with her roles. Each of her films is signed by her, with a certain trait that I would like to mention tonight: modernity. Truffaut or Stendhal, who loved Italy so much. Stendhal recorded their sentences when they were unfortunate enough to be four meters long. He hated science. Stendhal preferred life. Alongside Truffaut, she chose life and invented the cinema of prose. of modern prose. All cinema was nourished by Deneuve’s style, fast as a machine gun and asleep as a dream. Am I exaggerating? In 1967 he presented Buñuel’s Bella di Giorno in Venice and the world could not understand the sweetness of a parable and scandal. She has a fondness, yes a fondness, for the impure salt of life that’s unmistakable the moment she’s on screen. It’s his signature. Cinema and life are never as beautiful as when they are impure. The love of the novel is in all his films. With Téchiné, Wargnier or Bercot, he succeeded in reinventing the cinema of the novel. But I don’t know how to make a list of movies. I want to be here tonight in Venice where the Golden Lion awards ceremony. I want to remember Kore Eda, Le Vent de la Nuit or Place Vendôme that have already crowned it. Catherine, tonight I want to tell you that I know of only one artist as proud and free as you. It’s Bob Dylan. He received the Nobel Prize, she the Golden Lion. Mademoiselle, you have enchanted my life. His freedom is what I want. Thank you on behalf of all viewers.”