©Thomas Niedermüller/Getty Images for Zurich Film Festival

The French filmmaker Maïwenn accepted the 16. Zurich Film Festival’s A Tribute To... Award this evening. The director, screenwriter and actress received the highest honour bestowed by the Zurich Film Festival on filmmakers for their contribution to film history.    

The Zurich Film Festival’s (ZFF) most prestigious accolade for auteur filmmakers was presented to Maïwenn at the premiere of her most recent work ADN (DNA) at the Arthouse Le Paris cinema this evening. Maïwenn has garnered numerous awards for her works, including, from today, the ZFF’s A Tribute To... Award. The filmmaker feels honoured to be awarded at the Zurich Film Festival: ”Receiving a prize at the Zurich Film Festival makes me happy. But tomorrow morning I will wake up again with my complexities, so thank you very much for making me feel like the most talented director in the universe tonight.”

Born close to Paris, Maïwenn is one of the most exciting voices in contemporary French auteur cinema. She is the spearhead of a new generation of auteur filmmakers telling often autobiographically inspired stories. She began her acting career at the beginning of the 1980s, and has been directing movies since 2004. Maïwenn’s most recent film ADN (DNA), which also sees her play the lead role, revolves around a Frenchwoman with Algerian roots who longs to discover more about her grandfather’s homeland following his death.   

Maïwenn accepted the A Tribute To... Award in person from the hands of Festival Director Christian Jungen. Conferring the award on Maïwenn was a particular honour as the Festival’s annually changing spotlight on a film-producing country was focussed this year on France. Jungen said: ”We present this year’s A Tribute To... Award to Maïwenn, a director who is already able to look back on an incredibly diverse and long career despite only now gradually nearing her pinnacle.”   

This is the second time that Maïwenn has visited the Zurich Film Festival. She presented her romantic drama MON ROI as a ZFF Gala Premiere in 2015.

Previous recipients of the A Tribute To... Award include Wim Wenders, Olivier Assayas, Claire Denis, Michael Haneke and Oliver Stone.