Cannes

Eddy Brière © Les Films du 24 - UGC Distribution

Thérèse Desqueyroux by Claude Miller, with Audrey Tautou in the title role, Gilles Lellouche and Anaïs Demoustier, will be screened at the closing ceremony of the 65th Festival de Cannes on 27 May in the Grand Théâtre Lumière of the Palais des Festivals.

Claude Miller’s final film is an adaptation of François Mauriac’s novel “Thérèse Desqueyroux”. On the 4th of April of this year, shortly after finishing the montage, the director succumbed to illness. This film is the final piece in his immense body of work, to which the Festival de Cannes and the director’s many admirers will pay tribute.

“What thrills me in the filmmaking process is to focus on the interplay of appearances, gestures, looks, behaviour and to use them to try to intimate the inner lives of people, their secret garden, even though we only see them from the outside”.

Claude Miller’s formative years were in Nouvelle Vague cinema, working as an assistant to François Truffaut, “the filmmaker of the intimate”.  Through the evolution of his work, he created a universe that could speak to a very broad audience, from The Best Way to Walk (La meilleure façon de marcher) (1976) to The Grilling (Garde à vue) (1981), from Deadly Run (Mortelle randonnée) (1983) to The Accompanist (l’Accompagnatrice) (1992) and A secret (Un secret) (2007), from the Prix Delluc for The Hussy (l’Effrontée) (1985) to the Jury Prize at the Festival de Cannes for Class Trip (la Classe de neige) (1998). As a politically engaged filmmaker, he also chaired the Association of Filmmakers and Producers (Association des réalisateurs producteurs) and was active in the “Club des 13”, a think tank for reforming the production system.

By dedicating the closing night to him, the Festival de Cannes, along with his family, friends, producers, and distributers, is very pleased to pay tribute to the memory of Claude Miller.