Ford honoured at film fest
2009-09-02 21:34
Deauville - Hollywood stars Harrison Ford, Meryl Streep and Robin Wright Penn descend on the famed French seaside resort of Deauville from Friday for the town's annual festival of American films.
Ford, best known for his four portrayals of whip-cracking archaeologist Indiana Jones, has been a frequent visitor to the Deauville film fest in the past, but this year is flying in as its official guest of honour .
Streep and Wright Penn will be on hand, respectively, for the French premieres of Julie & Julia and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, among 16 US movies showing out of competition at the festival, which closes with its awards ceremony on September 13.
Heading the jury selecting the best US film among the 11 features in the running is one of France's best-known filmmakers, Amelie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, himself releasing a new movie late in October.
Also due to step along Deauville's celebrated seaside boardwalk to present their latest releases are Steven Soderbergh with The Informant, starring Matt Damon as an agri-business exec who blows the whistle on malpractices, and actor-director-producer Andy Garcia for City Island, a comedy of a dysfunctional family's secrets and lies.
This year's 35th edition of the festival, which last year drew 50 000 filmgoers, shows "films that reflect our times, mixing humour, sarcasm, drama and social satire", said festival founder Lionel Chouchan.
Deauville will also pay a posthumous homage to Robert Aldrich, the US director of World War II movie The Dirty Dozen and the chilling What Ever Happened to Baby Jane. Aldrich died in 1983.
The top prize in 2008 went to Tom McCarthy's The Visitor, a New York-set social drama about illegal immigration.