The French Directors’ Guild (SRF) will fete UK director Andrea Arnold with its honorary Carrosse d’Or (Golden Carriage) award at the upcoming edition of its Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.
Arnold will receive the prize on May 15 at the opening ceremony of the parallel section.
She is the first UK director to be honored with the award and follows in the wake of the likes of Kelly Reichardt, John Carpenter, Martin Scorsese, Jia Zhangke, Jane Campion, Agnès Varda, Naomi Kawase and Jim Jarmusch.
“From Milk to Red Road, from Wuthering Heights to American Honey, you scrutinize society from every angle, travelling through times and environments, and you embark us with powerful female characters,” the SRF board wrote in a letter to Arnold.
“Faced with hindered desires and fallen ambitions, your heroines fight, grow, often in violence, and come into their own. Your sensitive and sharp eye on Mia, Sacha, Cathy, Jacky, Star and so many more strikes and delights us. Your singular take on mise-en-scene, your will to explore reality and give it a new shape in fiction as well as in documentary are a testament to your exacting gaze, both aesthetically and politically. We love the bravery and freedom of your work, your subtle art of contrast in the feld of desire and revolt. We are amazed by your constant ability to reinvent yourself, as if to question your filmmaking every time.”
Cannes Directors’ Fortnight runs May 15 to 25 alongside the main Cannes Film Festival.