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| Photo Credit: AP. |
(AP) - Catherine Deneuve is not that fond of reminiscing, even as she prepares to collect a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Venice International Film Festival.
“We don’t
have time to look backwards,” Deneuve told reporters Wednesday, hours before
her award. “This is our present and we have to continue to go forward.”
At 78, the
legendary French actor is as busy as ever. She’s just wrapped up one film in
Paris and is starting another soon in Belgium. The industry environment, she
thinks, is better for older women, and actors, in Europe than in America.
Deneuve has
a long history with the Venice Film Festival, going back to 1967 when she won
the Golden Lion for her portrayal of a well-heeled housewife who starts working
at a brothel in Luis Buñuel’s classic “Belle de Jour.” In 1998, she won the
festival’s Volpi Cup for “Place Vendôme.” She’ll collect this latest honor,
another Golden Lion, at the festival’s opening night.
Though she
is often described as an icon of cinema, Deneuve rejects the term for herself.
She also said she doesn’t think she was ever a “sex symbol” either.
But she
still treasures the films she made with directors Jacques Demy (“The Umbrellas
of Cherbourg,” “The Young Girls of Rochefort” and “Donkey Skin”) and François
Truffaut (“The Last Metro”). Demy in particular, she said, was very important
in her early career when she hadn’t yet had much experience in film.
“Today, the
important things are the same: The story I want to tell ... the screenplay ...
the environment we create ... the people I will spend time with,” Deneuve said.
She also
continues to seek out new movies — and wants to see them in a crowd at a
theater.
“I love
cinema. I love going to the cinema,” she said. “I want to be in a cinema with
people I don’t know. It’s not just the sound. It’s the atmosphere. At home,
it’s very different. You don’t feel things the same at all.”
Follow all
AP stories on the Venice Film Festival at www.apnews.com/VeniceFilmFestival