History

Sep­tem­ber 6 to 15, 2024

We must nev­er lose sight of the fact that cin­e­ma is a game of glances, where the film­mak­er’s eye inter­sects with that of the view­er. Lionel Chouchan and André Hal­i­mi want­ed to extend this dia­logue of silent eyes to Amer­i­ca, a major play­er in the 7^th art, whose pre-emi­nence con­tin­ues to be con­firmed more than a cen­tu­ry after Hol­ly­wood’s begin­nings. In 1975, with the sup­port of Deauville may­or Michel d’Or­nano and Lucien Bar­rière, they launched the Deauville Amer­i­can Film Fes­ti­val, a cul­tur­al event unri­valled at the time, where works from the land of Uncle Sam were offered a priv­i­leged show­case on the Nor­mandy coast for French audi­ences. Fifty years on, their ambi­tion has been amply real­ized, and Deauville has become a major and respect­ed pop­u­lar event of undis­put­ed inter­na­tion­al stature.

For its 50^th anniver­sary, Deauville is more than ever a liv­ing fes­ti­val, con­tin­u­ing to keep pace with trends and devel­op­ments in Amer­i­can cinema.
Loy­al friends of the Fes­ti­val, such as guests of hon­or Michael Dou­glas, James Gray and Sean Bak­er, return to the stage, as does Fred­er­ick Wise­man, a major fig­ure in world doc­u­men­tary cin­e­ma, and the unique tal­ent of two prodi­gious actress­es, Natal­ie Port­man and Michelle Williams. Not for­get­ting, of course, the new faces of Hol­ly­wood, Mikey Madi­son, Daisy Rid­ley and Sebas­t­ian Stan, as well as Malia Ann, win­ner of the Prix Nou­velle Généra­tion for her short film The Heart.
Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la will present his event film Mega­lopo­lis, while Sean Bak­er, dis­cov­ered at Deauville and win­ner of the 2024 Palme d’Or, returns to the stage with Ano­ra. At the same time, the Fes­ti­val con­tin­ues to open a Win­dow on French cin­e­ma and to put itself on the Croisette Hour, with excep­tion­al works such as Pay­al Kapa­dia’s All We Imag­ine as Light, Michel Haz­anavi­cius’ The Most Pre­cious of Car­goes, Pao­lo Sor­renti­no’s Parthenope, Claude Lelouch’s Finale­ment and Simon Moutaïrou’s No Chains, No Mas­ters.

There’s also an anniver­sary pro­gram of 50 Amer­i­can films that have changed the way we look at the world, pre­sent­ed by lead­ing fig­ures from the world of cin­e­ma, as well as two pub­lic con­ver­sa­tions with James Gray and Christophe Hon­oré.
The jury, chaired by Benoît Mag­imel, and the Rev­e­la­tion jury, chaired by Alice Belaï­di, award the Grand Prix and Prix Fon­da­tion Louis Roed­er­er de la Révéla­tion to In the Sum­mers by Alessan­dra Laco­raz­za Samu­dio. This del­i­cate, auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal first fea­ture chron­i­cles the inter­twined des­tinies of two sisters.