French filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski, who’s just wrapped filming of “Vie Privée” starring Jodie Foster in Paris, received the French Cinema Award at a jam-packed ceremony held in an ornate room of the Ministry of Culture on Jan. 16.
The tribute, which is given by the film promotion body Unifrance, was introduced by Gaëtan Bruel, chief of staff of Rachida Dati, the minister of culture, as well as Unifrance president Gilles Pelisson and managing director Daniela Elstner.
Created in 2016, the French Cinema Award honors actors, filmmakers and producers who have contributed to making French cinema shine abroad. Past recipients include actors Juliette Binoche, Virginie Efira and Melvil Poupaud, director Olivier Assayas and producers Aton Soumache and Dimitri Rassam, among others.
Zlotowski, who is perfectly bilingual and has worked with a number of international talent, from Natalie Portman to Lily Rose-Depp and more recently Foster, has been actively promoting each movie she’s been involved as a screenwriter or filmmaker. She has also showcased diversity within her work, giving singular, non-stereotypical roles to actors from different ethnic and social backgrounds; and she was one of the founding members of the French feminist org that got international festivals like Cannes sign pledges allowing for greater gender parity and transparency in their selections.
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A graduate of the prestigious Ecole Normale Supérieure and French cinema school La Femis, Zlotowski first co-directed the short “Dans le Rang,” which won the SACD prize at the 2006 Directors Fortnight in Cannes. For her graduation project at La Femis, she wrote the screenplay for “Belle Epine,” which became her feature debut. The latter world premiered in 2010 at Cannes’ Critics Week and won the Prix Louis-Delluc for best first film. The movie also earned Léa Seydoux a César nomination for best female newcomer in 2011. Zlotowski then reunited with Seydoux for her second film, “Grand Central,” which also starred Tahar Rahim and world premiered at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2013. Her third film, “Planetarium,” starring Portman and Depp, opened at Toronto and Venice in 2016 and was released in 25 countries. “An Easy Girl,” starring Zahia Dehar, opened at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight in 2019.
In 2022, she directed “Other People’s Children” starring Virginie Efira and Roschdy Zem. The movie competed at Venice and sold nearly 400,000 admissions at the box office. It was distributed in some 40 territories.
Zlotowski has also thrived on the small screen, including with “Les Sauvages,” a political thriller series she directed and co-created for Canal+. The series revealed a new generation of actors, notably Dali Benssalah, Souheila Yacoub, Shaïn Boumedine, Lyna Khoudri and Sofiane Zermani — 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 everyone else who’s been mentioned, and when you see the list of those who’ve received it before, it makes you very modest,” said Zlotowski, who was cheered by her longtime producer Frederic Jouve, industry players like the influential banker Gregoire Chertok, producers Marie-Ange Luciani, Benjamin Elalouf, Priscilla Bertin, Didar Domehri, among others, as well as her father, Michel Zlotowski, a well-established interpreter, her step-mother and sister.
“Modesty is a quality that, as everyone here knows, is not only extremely rare among filmmakers, but I’m going to say even undesirable. Because you need immodesty in this business and, dare I say it, in this profession. Immodesty to imagine substituting one’s own desire for the world, immodesty to ask, while always feeling a little uncertain, for so much energy from others, to raise so much money,” she continued.
Referring to the unlikely pitches of her own movies, she quipped, “It’s going to be the story of a girl near a motorcycle track. He falls in love in a nuclear power plant. An easygoing girl has an amazing summer, and so on… As you can imagine, you always feel indebted to those who believe in it, and in my case, they’ve been the same ones from the start,” Zlotowski said, citing her producer, Frederic Jouve, and distributor Alexandra Henochsberg at Ad Vitam, along with the actors she worked with, “Léa, Tahar, Natalie, Zahia, Virginie, Jodie, Rochdy, Marina, Sofiane, Dali, Lyna, Daniel, Vincent and Mathieu.”
In her moving speech, Zlotowski also paid tribute to “the love of a family, a father, a mother, who passed at a young age, and a step-mother, a brother and a sister.” “My sister, Yael, who was always convinced that I’d be successful in whatever I did, gave me a lot of self-confidence.”
Zlotowski’s next film, “Vie privée” – starring Foster, Efira and Daniel Auteuil — will be released later this year and is expected to world premiere at a major festival.
The ceremony was held during the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Paris, a week of screenings and meetings with international sellers and buyers organized every year by Unifrance.