The 17th edition of Romania’s largest and most important film event features a section dedicated to the great French artist, Close-up Fanny Ardant, which consists of two exceptional roles selected from among the over 100 played by her, alongside two films directed by Ardant herself. At the TIFF closing gala held on June 2nd, at the National Theater in Cluj, Fanny Ardant will recieve the Transilvania Lifetime Achievement Trophy.
Ardant’s beauty, exuberance, versatility, and extraordinary talent propelled her among the most beloved French actresses. She worked with important directors like Claude Lelouch, Alain Resnais, Costa Gavras, Sydney Pollack, Franco Zeffirelli, or Ettore Scola, and played alongside Gérard Depardieu, Vittorio Gassman, Jean Rochefort, Catherine Deneuve, Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett among many others.
One of the most important collaborations for Ardant was working with legendary French New Wave director Francois Truffaut, who also became her life partner. His last film Vivement Dimanche / Confidentially Yours, brought Ardant her second César nomination and will be screened at TIFF this year.
In 2009, Ardant makes her directorial debut with Cendres et sang / Ashes and Blood, co-produced with Libra Film. The film was shot primarily in Romania, with an international cast that includes Romanian actors like Adrian Păduraru, Ion Besoiu, Răzvan Vasilescu, Tudor Istodor, and the late Olga Tudorache—to whom the TIFF screening is dedicated.
Also included in the programme and directed by Fanny Ardant is Le divan de Stalin / Stalin’s Couch (2016), an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Jean-Daniel Baltassant, which looks at the last days of the Soviet leader through the story of a young artist commissioned to make a monument dedicated to Stalin, played by Gerard Depardieu.
Finally, one of Ardant’s most recent and daring appearances on the silver screen is 2017 Locarno premiere Lola Pater (dir. Nadir Moknèche, 2017), in which she plays a transsexual woman who makes peace with the son she abandoned during the transition. As early as the script development stage, the director’s mother told him: “Do not waste your time looking for anyone. There is only one actress who can play this role. Not two, not three Just Fanny Ardant.”
