Cannes 2018: Diane Kruger Hands Out Chopard Trophies
GENERATION NEXT: It’s been a busy week for Chopard.
The jeweler and official sponsor of the Cannes Film Festival capped a long week of events — including a party held in a mystery villa in Cannes and a lunch celebrating its hook-up with Natalia Vodianova — with a ceremony in honor of the winners of its annual Chopard Trophy Award for up-and-coming talent.
This year’s winners, Elizabeth Debicki and Joe Alwyn, on Monday night were presented the award by Diane Kruger, a Chopard Trophy alumnus, alongside the festival’s director Thierry Frémaux and Chopard co-president and artistic director Caroline Scheufele.
The aim of the accolade is to highlight the most promising young names in the acting world and to give them much-needed visibility and exposure in cinema’s competitive landscape.
“It’s very easy once you’re on the A-list: George Clooney, Julia Roberts and so on. But it’s tough to get up there and with our trophy, we hope to give [young talent] a kickstart,” said Scheufele.
Unlike years past, however, there was no press access to the winning talent and the turnout for the ceremony, held in a conference room at the Hôtel Martinez — one of the more corporate, less glamorous venues in the newly renovated hotel — was a little thin. Chopard kept its accompanying cocktail party closed to a small group of press and clients.
Debicki, who was first plucked by Baz Luhrmann to play flamboyant party girl Jordan Baker in “The Great Gatsby,” is set to play Virginia Woolf in Chanya Butto’s “Vita and Virginia,” and is also in the cast of Steve McQueen’s “Widows.”
Alwyn is best known for his starring role in Ang Lee’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” and has also played alongside Charlotte Rampling in Ritesh Batra’s “The Sense of an Ending.”
“It’s my first time at the Cannes Film Festival, so to be recognized in this way at such a relatively early stage in my career is a huge vote of confidence,” said the London-born actor.
Alwyn will also play alongside Emma Stone in “The Favourite,” an upcoming film by Yorgos Lanthimos. “He’s pretty wild, his films are so unique and brilliant and strange, completely independent from who he is,” Alwyn said of the experience of working with Lanthimos.
Having name-checked previous trophy winners, including Marion Cotillard, Léa Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulos, Frémaux added that he “can guess but not promise that this year’s winners will have the same destiny in cinema.”
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