Michael Douglas will kick off the 50th Deauville American Film Festival this Friday.
An anniversary edition that awaits several generations of Hollywood stars, from Francis Ford Coppola to Natalie Portman.
Upstream, it has already been marked by the controversial eviction from the jury of trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf.
Once upon a time in Normandy. On September 2, 1975, the Deauville American Film Festival held its first edition with a small group. At the time, the organizers attracted a Hollywood star of the moment, actress Jennifer O’Neill, who came to present Death in dreams by Jack Lee Thompson, while two virtual unknowns, Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, take their budding romance to the stage… Since then, the event has attracted the biggest names in American cinema, both its legends and its rising stars. And it is with a cast that combines the past and the present that it celebrates its 50th anniversary starting Friday…
Stars almost every night
He first came to Deauville in 1990, when he was a producer of The Forbidden Experiment by Joel Schumacher, the director of Free fall. An essential figure of American cinema, still in the credits of the miniseries Franklin Last spring, Michael Douglas, 79, will give the starting signal for this edition this Friday evening. He is the guest of honor at the opening ceremony of a 50th edition that is expecting something big. Natalie Portman will come to inaugurate her cabin on the stage while Michelle Williams will receive the Deauville Talent Award for her entire career.
Briton Daisy Ridley, star of the latest Star Wars trilogy, will receive the New Hollywood Award, as will Sebastian Stan, who wowed Donald Trump in the next one. The Apprentice but also Mikey Madison, the revelation of Anorathe Palme d’Or winner of the last Cannes Film Festival who will be making the trip with his author, Sean Baker. On the directors’ side, veteran Frederick Wiseman and maverick James Gray will be given a special tribute. But the one everyone is waiting for is Francis Ford Coppola who will come to present his gargantuan Megalopolisafter receiving a mixed reception on the Croisette. Finally, almost 60 years after filming A man and a woman on the beach of Deauville, Claude Lelouch will come to present Eventuallyhis 51st film, in theaters next November.
The controversy we didn’t expect
After announcing this summer the presence of Ibrahim Maalouf on the jury chaired by Benoît Magimel, the Deauville Festival decided a few days ago to exclude the Franco-Lebanese trumpeter due to the “discomfort” caused by the case of sexual assault on a minor in which he was convicted and then acquitted in 2020. A decision taken by Aude Hesbert, the new director of the event who took up her duties at the beginning of the summer in a particular context: her predecessor, Bruno Barde, was himself dismissed from his duties after accusations of harassment and sexual assault by several female colleagues, in an investigation published by Mediapart.
Contested by the main person concerned, but also by political figures such as former minister Aurore Bergé on TF1, the ouster of Ibrahim Maalouf comes at a time when French cinema finally seems to be doing its #MeToo, in the wake of the Gérard Depardieu affair and Judith Godrèche’s accusations against Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon. It is in this spirit that, like Cannes and other events of this type, Deauville has planned to adopt a charter against sexist and sexual violence.
Miss Obama on stage
She will be the surprise guest at the opening ceremony. Malia Obama, 26, the eldest daughter of Barack and Michelle Obama, will come to present The Hearther first short film as a director after having worked as a screenwriter on SwarmDonald Glover’s sultry series on Prime Video. Sasha’s big sister doesn’t seem to have any intention of embarking on a career in politics. She is actually part of a new generation that is breaking the codes of American cinema, like many young talents competing this year in Deauville.
This is the case of Minhal Baig, the director of Pakistani origin who will present We Grow Nowthe portrait of two 9-year-old kids in the poor suburbs of Chicago in the 1990s. By the visual artist Titus Kaphar, whose work we will discover Exhibiting Forgivenessthe portrait of a successful black artist caught up in his family history. Or of the activist Brandt Andersen who cast our Omar Sy in The Stranger’s Casea drama that explores the global consequences of a family tragedy in Aleppo, Syria.
