Joel and Ethan Coen will be honored at the 18th edition of the Lumière Festival, which runs from Oct. 10-18 in Lyon, France.
The filmmaking brothers will receive the Lumière Award at the festival, which is focused on classic cinema and iconic filmmakers, and is headed by Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux.
The Coens will receive their award on Oct. 16, and their films will be shown in a retrospective, with a series of event screenings.
The Lumière Award is presented to “a personality of the cinema for his or her entire body of work.” Last year, Michael Mann was the recipient. Others to receive the award include Tim Burton, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Pedro Almodovar, Quentin Tarantino, Jane Fonda and Clint Eastwood.
Oscar wins for the brothers include those for “No Country for Old Men” and “Fargo.” Nominations include those for “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” “True Grit,” “A Serious Man” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
In a statement, the festival said, “The adjective ‘cult’ seems to have been invented for them. While they have received a Palme d’Or, three Best Director Awards and a Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as four Oscars, it is above all the public’s enthusiasm, the audiences’ attachment to their films, and their impact on contemporary culture that have placed them at the very pinnacle of cinema superstars.”
It added they were “extraordinary storytellers and masterful screenwriters,” and praised them for “their sense of humor, their style, their command of narrative, the way they use music, as well as the ensemble of actors who surround them.”
It called them “rock stars of their craft — icons of popular culture whose films have left an unforgettable impact,” adding that “they stand at the forefront of a generation that revolutionized the art of cinema in the 1990s.”
It concluded they were “worthy heirs to, and among the most distinguished successors of, the great tradition of American cinema.”
