French actor Jean Reno will be a guest at this year’s 51st Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where he will receive the Festival President’s Award. He will receive the award on July, 4 at 10:30pm in the Grand Hall at the Hotel Thermal, where Luc Besson’s film Léonwill be screened to his honor.

This distinctive actor achieved international popularity thanks to his collaboration with director Luc Besson. Reno was nominated for a César Award for his performance in The Big Blue (Le Grand bleu, 1988), he appeared in La Femme Nikita (1990), and he received a second César nomination for Léon: The Professional(Léon, 1994). Based on this success, he soon appeared in Hollywood blockbusters such as Mission: Impossible(1996), Ronin (1998), Godzilla (1998), and The Da Vinci Code (2006).

Jean Reno has successfully alternated tough-guy roles in action films – two parts of the crime series The Crimson Rivers (Les Rivières pourpres, 2000, 2004),Empire of the Wolves (L’Empire des loups, 2005), andThe Sweeney: Paris (Antigang, 2015) – with comic roles, in particular in the film series The Visitors (Les Visiteurs). In fact, Reno’s third César nomination was for the role of Godefroy, a medieval knight who accidentally lands in the present day. Jean Reno is also a recipient of the European Film Academy Achievement in World Cinema Award.