Academy Award-winning filmmaker Florian Zeller received France’s highest civilian honour, the Legion of Honor, for his outstanding contributions to art and cinema.
Zeller is known for critically-acclaimed dramas “The Father” and “The Son” and was appointed Knight of the Legion of Honor by France President Emmanuel Macron in an intimate ceremony in Paris on Wednesday, according to news outlet Variety.
The event was attended by artists from film, TV, theater and literature including Isabelle Huppert, Pierre Arditi, Catherine Frot and Elodie Navarre who have starred in Zeller’s plays; Christopher Hampton, with whom he shares a best-adapted screenplay Oscar for “The Father;” Elsa Zylberstein. Zeller’s wife, actor Marine Delterme, was also present at the ceremony.
“My path is an addition of successive passions. When I begun to write novels, I didn’t imagine for a second that one day, theatre would take up so much room, and when I started writing plays I didn’t anticipate that cinema would fill my heart so much, and now I dedicate my time to it while taking pleasure in imagining that perhaps in 10 years I will be doing something else,” Zeller said at the ceremony.
The 44-year-old playwright made his feature directorial debut in 2020 with “The Father”, based on his play of the same.
The film, starring Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman, won Zeller the Academy Award for best-adapted screenplay.
Zeller’s plays have been staged in 45 different countries, more than any other playwright.
