The inaugural Grand Lyon Film Festival closed this weekend following the presentation of the first Prix Lumiere to Clint Eastwood, who was in town for the event ahead of shooting part of his latest film in Lyon and Paris.

Billed as Lumiere 2009, festival is the brainchild of Cannes Film Festival artistic director and general manager, Thierry Fremaux, who is also the general manager of Lyon’s Institut Lumiere. He created it with the help of film-maker Bertrand Tavernier and Lyon mayor Gerard Collomb. 

It has been designed to showcase remastered works, retrospectives and tributes rather than new films. This year’s event focused on the works of Eastwood, Sergio Leone and Don Siegel.

Fremaux told ScreenDaily that the event was “an immense success, the cinemas were full and it came off just as good as we could have wanted.”

On Saturday, Eastwood was in Lyon to kick off a football game between Lyon and Sochaux and, later that evening, received the first ever Lumiere prize. Eastwood called France his second home and after watching a montage of clips from his films, said, “I want to thank the person who cut the trailers; it made me want to go see some of my own flicks.”

Fremaux said, “Clint was super. He really played the game and was very moved by the prize…What’s amazing with him is that he is a bridge to the history of cinema and then today he’s shooting here.”

Eastwood is still in France this week where he will shoot scenes from his latest film, Hereafter, with Matt Damon and Cecile de France in both Lyon and Paris.