“Everyone says that the Deauville Festival is special, but few people can affirm like me that it changed their lives. » Michael Douglas
Some relationships don’t cheat. The one that unites Michael Douglas with the Deauville American Film Festival is obvious. As he so well recalled in September 2020, when was celebrated in Deauville the memory of his father Kirk, the last legend of the Golden Age of Hollywood who died a few months earlier, the name “Douglas” had a profound impact on the Norman city.
From the Planches to Le Royal Barrière Hotel’s suite which bears its name, without forgetting the theaters of the Festival, its mark is indelible. More than any other, its simple evocation is enough to retrace a whole section of the history of American cinema, where eras and genres intertwine, from PATHS OF GLORY to WALL STREET, from SPARTACUS to BASIC INSTINCT.
Like his father before him, Michael Douglas has always remained faithful to the Festival. If romantics have not forgotten that it was in Deauville in 1998 that he met the actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, who later became his wife, festivalgoers remember that the Festival has never stopped saluting the career of a major actor and producer of his generation, who has in turn become legendary.
In 2013, back in Deauville for Steven Soderbergh’s BEHIND THE CANDELABRAS, the American artist once again demonstrated the full extent of his talent, proving that he could not simply be summarized as the archetype of the anti-hero who had made him famous. Eleven years later, as the Deauville American Film Festival celebrates its 50th anniversary, Michael Douglas had to return to Normandy for a fifth time to recall what the Douglas name brought to the seventh art. In Deauville, the relationship continues. History is still being written.
Michael Douglas will be at the festival on Friday, September 6, 2024.
