Lyon (AFP)

The Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, double winners of the Palme d'Or in Cannes, received Friday evening in Lyon the Lumière Prize which rewards each year a prominent personality of the 7th art.

The directors of "Rosetta" (1999) and "L'Enfant" (2005), authors of eleven feature films with a social vein, succeed the American filmmaker of "Apocalypse Now" Francis Ford Coppola, honored in 2019.

The Dardenne brothers, "it is one of the most beautiful appearances of contemporary cinema. It is a vision of the world, a style and a conviction. A bit like the Lumièrees elsewhere, of which they are, from this point of view. view, among the most beautiful descendants, "had recently confided to AFP Thierry Frémaux, the director of the event.

This 12th edition, which ends on Sunday, also paid tribute to the tasty French dialogue writer and screenwriter Michel Audiard, who would have turned 100 this year, with a retrospective of his films in restored copies.

Among the big names in international cinema, the American Oliver Stone, guest of honor at the festival, unveiled his autobiography, "In Search of Light" (ed. L'Observatoire) while his compatriot Viggo Mortensen presented "Falling ", his very first film as a director, and hosted a masterclass.

The Lyon festival, chaired by Bertrand Tavernier, also screened several feature film previews, which should have been shown in May in Cannes but could not be shown due to the health crisis, but also part of " Cannes Classics ", its traditional selection of films dedicated to cinema classics.

This selection was the occasion to discover a restored version of "In The Mood for Love" (2000), the masterpiece by Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai, winner of the Lumière Award in 2018.

Launched in 2009 by the Institut Lumière, in the district of Lyon where the cinematograph was invented in 1895 and where "The exit from the Lumière factory", the first film in history, was filmed, the festival is spread throughout movie theaters in the city.

Since its inception, the event has also dedicated the careers of Clint Eastwood, Jane Fonda, Quentin Tarantino, Ken Loach, Miloš Forman, Gérard Depardieu, Martin Scorsese, Catherine Deneuve and Pedro Almodóvar.

Presented as the largest festival in the world dedicated to classic films, it welcomed 200,000 spectators in 2019. And despite the Covid, moviegoers have not shied away from their pleasure this year.

© 2020 AFP