Martin Scorsese, celebrated American director and producer, was honored with the Lumière Prize at the 2015 French Lyon’s Film Festival.
For a seventh year in a row, Cannes Film Festival chief Thierry Frémaux pulled out the stops to honor one of the greatest living filmmakers at the event.
Abbas Kiarostami, veteran Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer, attended the function. Kiarostami is co-president with Scorsese of the Cannes Cinefondation which helps young filmmakers with their first or second features. He presented a special three-minute short he made for the US director entitled “Thanks Marty.”
Scorsese joined past honorees including Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino and Pedro Almodovar as the recipient of the Prix Lumière in Lyon, Mehr News Agency reported.
Frémaux runs the annual fest he co-founded with director Bertrand Tavernier, a weeklong event dedicated to re-mastered classics old and new. At the beginning of the gala before a jam-packed amphitheater, he said it had been his wish from day one of creating the festival to honor Scorsese.
The event was marked by musical interludes and tributes from those who have worked with Scorsese as well as many standing ovations. The festival is regularly attended by some of the global industry’s most respected talent.
Speaking of the Cinefoundation, Scorsese said when they started 25 years ago, “we were naïve in terms of the legal complications. Please don’t make it harder for filmmakers who are making films about their lives through cinema which are serious and entertaining and could enlighten a younger generation in ways to be interested by more than just six seconds on an iPhone and have their lives changed.”
Scorsese was handed his Prix Lumière by Hollywood actress Salma Hayek.
