The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has chosen French writer-director Claire Denis as the winner of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the organization announced Wednesday. LAFCA’s first in-person awards ceremony in three years will take place on Saturday, January 14, 2023.
“We are thrilled to honor Claire Denis, one of the greatest living filmmakers and a master at depicting the identity crises faced by both colonizer and colonized,” LAFCA President Claudia Puig said in a statement. “A distinctive sociopolitical point of view and anti-patriarchal sensibility infuse her work, which is deeply evocative, often tender and intimate, but never sentimental, and always uncompromising.”
Denis’s film “Stars at Noon”, starring Margaret Qualley, Joe Alwyn and Robert Pattinson, won the second place Grand Prix award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. In February, Denis received the Venice Silver Bear for Best Director for the film “Both Sides of the Blade,” starring Juliette Binoche and “Titane” star Vincent Lindon.
Denis made his film debut in 1988 with “Chocolat”, set in Cameroon, and has made acclaimed films such as “Beau Travail” (1999), “Trouble Every Day” (2000), “White Material” (2009) and science film. fiction “High Life” (2018). His 1996 drama “Nénette and Boni” also won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival.
The winners of this year’s competitive prizes will be announced on December 11. This year, LAFCA will present gender-neutral acting categories, with two awards for Best Leading Performance and two awards for Best Supporting Performance. Other award categories include New Generation and the Douglas Edwards Experimental Film Award.
