It would be easy to forget it, but the César practice of awarding two honorary trophies per year, one for an American celebrity and the other for a monument of French cinema, does not date from the 2024 edition. Certainly , there was this long, somewhat doubtful period, from 2009 until the post-health crisis period, where the choice of the French Cinema Academy was essentially focused on the first Hollywood star to come, present in Paris at the time of the ceremony. And we’re barely laughing…
But to properly celebrate the 50th ceremony of the main prize for French cinema, on Friday February 28, 2025 at the Olympia, the Césars are returning to the winning or at least reasonably egalitarian formula, practiced since its beginnings and already resumed this year this through the awards given to English director Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) and to the French screenwriter, actress and director Agnès Jaoui (My life my face).
Thus, the choice of American actress Julia Roberts was announced last week, on Monday September 30 to be precise, followed yesterday by that of Franco-Greek director Costa-Gavras. The name of the president of the ceremony was communicated a week earlier, on September 23. This is the icon of French cinema Catherine Deneuve, who had already occupied this symbolic position in 1983 and who has so far been nominated fourteen times for the César with two victories to boot: for The Last Metro by François Truffaut in 1981, then twelve years later for Indochina by Régis Wargnier. She becomes the second cinema personality to officiate for the second time as president of the César ceremony, after Alain Delon in 1995 and in 2000.
Finally, the nominations for the 50th edition of the César Awards will be announced on Wednesday January 29, 2025.
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Julia Roberts (* 1967)
Hollywood glamor in all its splendor will be stopping off in Paris next February, thanks to the coronation of American actress Julia Roberts. For more than thirty-five years, she has embodied a form of celebrity that almost takes us back to the system of untouchable stars of the golden age of Hollywood. Fortunately, most of his roles bravely maintain the illusion of a cheerful and approachable, if relatively neurotic, personality. Furthermore, Julia Roberts has been able to maintain sustained activity beyond the fifty-year mark, once considered fatal for the vast majority of American actresses.
Previously, she was associated with such indisputable public successes as Mystic Pizza by Donald Petrie, Women’s gossip de Herbert Ross, Pretty Woman de Garry Marshall, The Pelican Affair by Alan J. Pakula, Everyone says I love you the Woody Allen, My Best Friend’s Wedding by PJ Hogan, Love at first sight in Notting Hill by Roger Michell, Erin Brockovich Alone Against All et Ocean’s Eleven by Steven Soderbergh, as well as Closer Between consenting adults by Mike Nichols et Eat, pray, love by Ryan Murphy. Since then, she has appeared, among other things, in Wonder by Stephen Chbosky, Ben is back the Peter Hedges, Ticket to Paradise de Ol Parker, The World After Us by Sam Esmail, then soon After the Hunt by Luca Guadagnino.
Oscar winner in 2001 as Best Actress for Erin Brockovich Alone Against AllJulia Roberts was nominated three other times for the supreme American cinema award: for Women’s gossip, Pretty Woman et A summer in Osage County by John Wells. In terms of major honorary awards, the César is only its second, fifteen years after that of the San Sebastian Festival in Spain in 2010.
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Costa-Gavras (* 1933)
We could take the presence of Franco-Greek director Costa-Gavras for granted. Especially since Parisian film buffs sometimes come across him at the Cinémathèque Française, where he has been president since 2007 and until July 2026, after a first mandate from 1982-1987. However, apart from his very advanced age – he will be the oldest winner, just ahead of director Abel Gance (Napoleon) who was 91 years old when he received his honorary César in 1981 – he is one of the rare directors to still dare to confront major geopolitical themes today.
As evidenced by his latest films, Le Capital et Adults in the Roomreleased in November 2012 and 2019 respectively. And he even has a new film ready to be released, his twentieth feature film. It will be The Last Breath with Denis Podalydès and Kad Merad, presented at the last San Sebastian Festival and scheduled to be released in French cinemas on February 5, 2025.
Because hard-hitting films at the heart of current events, that’s really not what’s lacking in Costa-Gavras’ long and illustrious career. This was the case from his first feature film in 1965, The Policeman Killer compartment with Yves Montand. And this will remain true over time, thanks to Zstill with Montand and Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1970, The Confession et State of siege – Montand, again and again –, Special section, Clair de femme with Romy Schneider and – you guessed it… – Yves Montand, Missing Missing with Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek, Hanna K. avec Jill Clayburgh, The Devil’s Right Hand with Debra Winger, Music Box with Jessica Lange, La Petite apocalypse with André Dussollier and Pierre Arditi, Amen. with Mathieu Kassovitz and Ulrich Tukur, The Cleaver with José Garcia and Eden in the West with Riccardo Scamarcio.
Popular at the biggest European festivals, where he won the Cannes Palme d’Or in 1982 for Missing Missing and the Berlin Golden Bear for Music Box in 1990, Costa-Gavras was nominated seven times for the César, the last time in 2020 for Best Adapted Screenplay from Adults in the Room. He won it in 2003 for the screenplay of Amen. After two Oscar nominations for Z (Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay), he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1983 for Missing Missing. The European Film Awards had already awarded him their honorary prize in 2018, as did the Locarno Festival in 2022.
