French icons who walked the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival

Yesterday, the Venice International Film Festival, also known as the Venice Film Festival, rolled out its red carpet for the 81st time, welcoming a carefully selected group of celebrities from the world of cinema. Though this tradition is Italian, the film festival is international and not exclusively reserved for artists from Italy. This year, four French films are competing, including a cinematic adaptation of the book Leurs enfants après eux, winner of the Goncourt Prize. Film festivals also mean stars and icons of the big screen. So let’s take this opportunity to look back over the years at some of these icons, symbols of French elegance and chic, who have had the honor of gracing the red carpet, sometimes even leaving with a Lion d'or in hand, and remain a source of great pride for France today.

Brigitte Bardot

In the late 1950s, specifically in 1958, the singer of La Madrague and the one credited with the idea of wearing ballerinas as street shoes attended Venice with her then-partner Sacha Distel to present the film In Case of Adversity, a Franco-Italian production by Claude Autant-Lara based on the novel by Georges Simenon, in which she played Yvette, a bold and criminal young prostitute. Just a few years earlier, during the festival's 10th edition in 1953, the singer-actress had already made a splash, arm in arm with another suitor, Kirk Douglas.

Catherine Deneuve

The French actress has long been a familiar face at the Venice Film Festival. She first attended in 1966 for the presentation of the film Les Créatures, accompanied by Belgian director Agnès Varda. The following year, she won the coveted Golden Lion for her role in Belle de Jour, a surreal psychological drama directed by Luis Buñuel in which she portrayed a housewife who, bored with her monotonous life, becomes a prostitute. 31 years later, her performance in Place Vendôme by Nicola Garcia earned her the Coupe Volpi  for Best Actress, awarded by a jury chaired by Italian filmmaker Ettore Scola. She became a regular at the festival, even serving as a jury member in 2006 for the 63rd edition. Finally, in 2022, she once again received a statuette, this time as a lifetime achievement award.

Isabelle Huppert

Revealed by director Claude Chabrol in the film Violette Nozière (1978), winner of the Best Actress award for A Story of Women (1998) and The Ceremony (1995), and César winner for Best Actress for Elle, Isabelle Huppert is currently one of the most prolific French actresses. Naturally, she has been chosen to be the president of the jury for the 2024 edition of the festival. Indeed, she is also a regular attendee, having been honored on several occasions. She is the fourth Frenchwoman to head the Venice Film Festival jury in the past 20 years.

Jane Birkin

In 1985, the French-English actress made her first appearance at the Venice Film Festival with the film Dust, a Franco-Belgian drama directed by Marion Hänsel, in which she portrayed Magda. After debuting in England, she moved to France, where she starred in Slogan and met Serge Gainsbourg. These two events boosted her career and propelled her to the forefront of the French stage. She returned to the Venetian red carpet in 2009 for the 66th edition of the festival with the film Around a small mountain.

Bonus: Jean Marais and Jean Cocteau

Simply because the photo is worth seeing, and because they are also two French stars who have greatly enriched French culture: Jean Marais and Jean Cocteau on a café terrace in Venice in 1947, during the 8th edition of the festival. Their iconic friendship is still talked about today, with one being an actor and director of classics like Fantomas and the other the author of Les Enfants Terribles and Beauty and the Beast. Jean Cocteau even chaired the festival jury in 1953.