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| Robert De Niro will receive an honorary Palme d’Or during the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival Photo: Brigitte Lacombe/Festival de Cannes |
The opening ceremony of this year’s Cannes Film Festival whose official selection will be unveiled on Thursday (10 April) already has one confirmed mega-star - Robert De Niro who will receive the Honorary Palme d’Or at the 78th edition.
The tribute will take place during the opening ceremony on 13 May and the following day, De Niro will take part in a masterclass on the stage of the Debussy Theatre in the Palais des Festivals.
“I have such close feelings for Festival de Cannes,” De Niro, 81, said in a statement issued to herald the honour. “Especially now when there’s so much in the world pulling us apart, Cannes brings us together – storytellers, filmmakers, fans, and friends. It’s like coming home.”
The festival organisers gushed: “Throughout his career, De Niro has lent his natural authority to characters from the Italian-American Mafia, from petty thug to major mafioso, making them his signature characters, beginning the following year. Then, he took on one of the most significant roles in his career and in the world of cinema: the young Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II, and succeeded in the challenge of interpreting the early years of Marlon Brando's character without imitating him. His performance earned him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
The years that followed confirmed De Niro's talent, with a string of films and successes. In 1976, he presented two “masterpieces" in the Official Selection at the Festival: Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900 and Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, which won the Palme d'Or. His renowned sense of perfectionism may have had much to do with this award.
His commitment to his roles, noted the Festival’s announcement, became legendary as his collaboration with Martin Scorsese continued: he learned to play the saxophone for New York, New York, took up boxing and gained 30 kilos for Raging Bull, which was his own idea and which won him the Oscar for Best Actor.
A particular high point in his trajectory was the founding of the Tribeca Film Festival in the wake of 9/11 which revealed another facet of his personality: his political commitment. He was last in Cannes for the premiere of Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon.
As previously announced French actor Juliette Binoche will succeed Greta Gerwig as jury president of this year’s festival. It will mark a second time in Cannes history that the jury will be headed by a woman for two consecutive years.
