Red will receive Locarno Fest honors

French-Swiss actress Irène Jacob, best known for her star roles in Krzysztof Kieślowski The Double Life of Veronique (1991), and Three colors: red (1994), will be rewarded this year at the Locarno Festival with the Leopard Club Award for his contribution to contemporary cinema.

The awards ceremony will take place in Locarno’s Piazza Grande on the evening of Friday August 9 and will be followed the next morning by a public conversation with Jacob at the @Spazio Cinema Forum. The festival will screen Kieślowski’s Three colors: red in tribute.

“Irene Jacob is one of the most mysterious and sublime presences in cinema,” said Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro. “Each of his performances manifests the elusive precision of a presence so completely identified with the images of the film that it is practically part of the cinematography. His ability to abandon himself to the gaze of the directors and then, on the contrary, to vigorously embody the character, to take charge of him, is the sign of a refined and voluntarily instinctive art… Jacob is a true treasure of cinema.

Born in Paris but raised in Geneva, Jacob made his film debut in the Louis Malle film Goodbye children (1987), which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. But it was his work with Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski that earned him international fame. Their first collaboration, and Kieślowski’s first feature film made outside Poland, The Double Life of Veronique (1991), premiered at Cannes, where Jacob won the Best Actress award. Jacob also starred in Three colors: redKieślowski’s last film, premiered at Cannes, losing the Palme d’Or that year to that of Quentin Tarantino. pulp Fiction. The film, also screened at Locarno in 1994, received three Oscar nominations.

Three colors: red made Jacob a global name and she went on to appear in several international productions: as Desdemona alongside Laurence Fishburne and Kenneth Branagh in Oliver Parker. Othello (1995); take on supporting roles in US Marshals with Tommy Lee Jones and Wesley Snipes, and in My life so far (1999) with Colin Firth and Rosemary Harris.

More recently, Jacob has starred in arthouse dramas such as Shikun by Amos Gitai, which premiered in Berlin this year, and in the Cannes entry by Rithy Panh Meeting with Pol Pot.

The 77th Locarno Film Festival takes place from August 7 to 17. Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner will chair the jury for the 77th edition.