Dublin International Film Festival (DIFF, February 22-March 2) has unveiled its first programme highlights, with French star Isabelle Huppert to receive DIFF’s career achievement accolade, the Volta Award, and That They May Face The Rising Sun set to close the festival.
Huppert’s career has spanned six decades, from early roles such as Claude Goretta’s The Lacemaker, for which she received the Bafta most promising newcomer award, to recent cinema roles including Mia Hansen-Love’s Things To Come, Michael Haneke’s Happy End, Neil Jordan’s Greta, Anthony Fabian Mrs Harris Goes To Paris and Paul Verhoeven’s Elle .
“One of the finest actors of her generation, Isabelle Huppert has made an indelible impression on world cinema, her fearless performances, boundless curiosity and incredible work rate has defined modern French cinema,” said festival director, Gráinne Humphreys.
“We relish the opportunity with our festival audience to celebrate her career and her immense talent in presenting her with our Volta award in person in Dublin.”
The actor will be presented with the award during an ‘in conversation’ event, with the festival also screening Venice premiere Sidonie au Japon, directed by Elise Girard, in which Huppert plays a French writer mourning her husband’s death while on a book tour in Japan.
Closing film That They May Face The Rising Sun is an adaptation of the final novel of revered Irish writer John McGahern. It is directed by Pat Collins and premiered at the BFI London Film Festival in October 2023.
It captures life in a rural, lakeside community in Ireland around the 1970s and 80s, after a couple moves from London to live and work amid the close-knit community. Barry Ward and Anna Bederke star in what Humphreys described as a “lyrical, tender adaptation”.
Break Out Pictures will release the film theatrically in Ireland in 2024 and is in discussion with potential partners for a UK release.
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