Unifrance honors French actor Melvil Poupaud with a French Cinema Award

On January 18, 2024, actor Melvil Poupaud, whose forty-year career, rich in variety, has progressively established him as a key figure in auteur cinema and, more recently, in the French audiovisual industry, will receive a French Cinema Award from Unifrance, during a ceremony at the French Ministry of Culture.

Created in 2016 by Unifrance, the French Cinema Award is designed to pay tribute to an international film industry figure who has worked to promote French cinema around the world. Particularly committed to the international promotion of his films, the actor has traveled very regularly in recent years with Unifrance, to meet foreign audiences and press.

An actor celebrated by the greatest French and international directors, Melvil Poupaud began his career as a child in the early 1980s under the aegis of director Raoul Ruiz, who for several years made him the central figure in a series of unique and unclassifiable films. Poupaud then crossed paths with other prestigious filmmakers, enabling him to broaden his range as an actor, notably Éric Rohmer who gave him the lead role in "A Summer's Tale", a film that brought him to the attention of a wide popular audience and opened the doors to international recognition. The young actor went on to work under the direction of Jean-Jacques Annaud, Danièle Dubroux, Laurence Ferreira Barbosa, Marion Vernoux, Noémie Lvovsky, and James Ivory, before making another decisive encounter with François Ozon, and becoming one of the director's favorite actors.

In 2011, his role as a transvestite in Xavier Dolan's Laurence Anyways brought him increased international exposure, which was to grow with standout roles in Justine Triet's "In Bed with Victoria" (2016), Carine Tardieu's "The Young Lovers" (2021), Arnaud Desplechin's "Brother and Sister" (2022), and more recently Valérie Donzelli's "Just the Two of Us", présented at the Cannes Film Festival 2023 (Cannes Première section), in which he revealed a distinctly darker side to his acting, which he explored the same year in Woody Allen's "Coup de Chance" (2023), in which he plays one of the lead roles.

Also starring in the hugely successful "OVNI(s)" series, sold worldwide, Melvil Poupaud is the epitome of the protean actor, both discreet and popular, open to the world, a key figure in French cinema and the audiovisual world, and a favorite with international audiences. He has been nominated for four César awards.

He will soon be appearing in Christophe Honoré's new film, "Près des yeux, près du coeur", as well as the political mini-series "Dans l'ombre", directed by Pierre Schoeller and produced for France Télévisions, based on the novel by former French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe.