Isabelle Huppert to Receive Locarno Lifetime Achievement Honor

COLOGNE, Germany - French actress Isabelle Huppert will receive the Locarno Film Festival's lifetime achievement honor, the Excellence Award Moet & Chandon. The Swiss fest will honor Huppert on August 7 and will screen a selection of the actress' work, including Claude Chabrol's Merci pour le Chocolat (2000), Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher (2002), which won Huppert the best actress prize in Cannes and The Lacemaker (1977) from Swiss director Claude Coretta, one of Huppert's first starring roles.

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Last seen in Eva Ionesco's debut film's My Little Princess, Huppert next appears in Anne Fontaine's My Worst Nightmare and the kidnapping drama Captured from Philippine director Brillante Mendoza. She is currently in production on the latest, as-yet-untitled drama from Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo. Among her many pipeline projects is the German historical horror film The Blood Countess co-starring Tilde Swinton.

Huppert will attend Locarno, which runs August 3 -13. Locarno Festival Director Olivier Pere and French film critic Jean-Marc Lalanne will interview Huppert in front of a festival audience.

"(Isabelle Huppert) is undoubtably one of the best actresses of our times," Pere said. "(She) has created a powerful body of work, choosing complex and unforgettable roles and directors who rank among the most distinctive in modern cinema. Her range as a actress seems infinite."

Previous winners of Locarno's Excellence Award include Susan Sarandon, Willem Defoe, Michel Piccoli and John Malkovich.