Meryl Streep: Guest of Honor at the Opening Ceremony of the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Meryl Streep will be the guest of honor at the opening ceremony of the 77th Cannes Film Festival, set to take place on Tuesday, May 14th, at the Grand Théâtre Lumière stage. Celebrated figure of American cinema, the actress will kick off this new edition, which will conclude on Saturday, May 25th, with the Jury President's Palmarès, Greta Gerwig.
Following in the footsteps of Jeanne Moreau, Marco Bellocchio, Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Jane Fonda, Agnès Varda, Forest Whitaker, and Jodie Foster, Meryl Streep will be awarded an honorary Palme d'Or on this occasion. Thirty-five years after winning the Best Actress award for "Sophie's Choice," which remains her only appearance at the Cannes Film Festival to date, she will make a long-awaited return to the Croisette.
"I am extremely honored to learn that I will receive this prestigious award. Winning an accolade at Cannes, for the international community of artists, has always represented the highest distinction in the art of filmmaking. Standing in the shadow of those who have been awarded before is both a lesson in humility and an exhilarating experience. I look forward to coming to France to personally thank everyone next May!" declares Meryl Streep.
"We all have something of Meryl Streep in us!" declare Iris Knobloch and Thierry Frémaux. "We all have something of 'Kramer vs. Kramer,' 'Sophie's Choice,' 'Out of Africa,' 'The Bridges of Madison County,' 'The Devil Wears Prada,' or 'Mamma Mia' in us. Because she has traversed nearly 50 years of cinema and inhabited countless masterpieces, Meryl Streep is part of our collective imagination, of our shared cinephilia."
After studying theater and achieving early success on the New York stage, Meryl Streep's film career took off in 1978 with "The Deer Hunter," alongside Robert De Niro. In Michael Cimino's film, she endeavored to bring nuance and depth to her character by writing her own lines. This marked her first Oscar nomination – she now has 21, a record – and showcased her commitment to portraying strong and ambivalent women. Thus, when she starred opposite Dustin Hoffman in "Kramer vs. Kramer," she refused to let the film revolve around the male character and rewrote a crucial monologue. She then won her first Oscar, quickly establishing herself with both the public and the industry.
Meryl Streep's intuition and work ethic have been instrumental in reinventing herself with each appearance. Even within a single film: in Karel Reisz's "The French Lieutenant's Woman," she plays two different roles. In Alan J. Pakula's "Sophie's Choice," she questions an inconceivable moral dilemma for a mother through her performance. For this role, she learns German and Polish to perfect her accent – Andrzej Wajda himself found it impeccable – and wins the Oscar for Best Actress.
The unforgettable historical and romantic epic "Out of Africa" (1985) by Sidney Pollack marks another turning point, where she forms one of cinema's most legendary couples with Robert Redford. Far from confining herself to the realm of romantic passion, Meryl Streep also ventures into darker characters. In Fred Schepisi's "A Cry in the Dark" (1988), she fearlessly portrays a mother accused of infanticide. Her performance earns her the Best Actress award at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.
The 1990s afford her the opportunity to explore dark comedy: she subverts female stereotypes in Mike Nichols' "Postcards from the Edge" and Robert Zemeckis' "Death Becomes Her." With "The Bridges of Madison County," she shines alongside Clint Eastwood in a love story as impossible as it is timeless, leaving an indelible mark on cinema history.
Throughout her career, Meryl Streep has not shied away from publicly denouncing the precariousness of women in the film industry. Aware of the stakes of female representation in Hollywood cinema and eager to embody all their facets in their complexity and fragility, Meryl Streep explores various genres and registers. After "The Hours" by Stephen Daldry and "A Prairie Home Companion" by Robert Altman, she impresses once again in two equally funny and unexpected roles: the acerbic editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine in "The Devil Wears Prada" and Donna, a hippie marrying off her daughter in the musical comedy "Mamma Mia." She then appears in biopics ("The Iron Lady," "Florence Foster Jenkins," "Julie & Julia"), political satires ("Lions for Lambs," "The Post," "Don't Look Up"), and family films like "Little Women" directed by the President of the Jury of the 77th Cannes Film Festival, Greta Gerwig.
Two women, two generations, two standards, and the same passion for the Seventh Art come together on the stage of the Grand Théâtre Lumière.
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