Cannes 2024: George Lucas will receive an honorary Palme d’Or

The creator of Star Wars will succeed his friend Harrison Ford, winner of the prize last year.

While the official selection of the Cannes festival must be revealed Thursday morning, aperitif announcements are multiplying concerning this 77th edition. Yesterday, we learned that Kevin Costner was going to unveil his western on the Croisette, out of competition Horizon: An American Sagain which he stars but which he also directed.

The Cannes Film Festival announced today that George Lucas will receive an honorary Palme d'Or at the closing ceremony on Saturday May 25.

“The Cannes Film Festival has always held a special place in my heartexplained the director of Star Wars and American Graffiti. I was surprised and delighted when my first film, THX-1138, was selected to be screened on the Croisette in 1971. Since then, I have returned to the Festival numerous times as screenwriter, director and producer. I am truly honored by this special recognition which means a lot to me.”

Keeping a distance from the world of cinema since the takeover of his company Lucasfilm by Disney in 2012, George Lucas is, as he recalls in the festival's press release, an old regular on the Croisette: on the cusp of his career , it was at the Directors' Fortnight that he presented his very first film, THX-1138, ambitious SF essay with Robert Duvall. He returned to the festival around thirty years later, in 2002 and 2005, to present parts 2 and 3 of Star Wars, Attack of the Clones And Revenge of the Sith. In the meantime, he had completely shaken up cinema and the world's imagination, creating the immense pop mythology that is Star Wars as much as by pushing the limits of technology.

Created at the beginning of the 21st century, the Honorary Palme d'Or has rewarded filmmakers (Agnès Varda, Clint Eastwood, Manoel de Oliveira, etc.) as well as actors (Alain Delon, Tom Cruise, Jodie Foster, etc.). Last year, on the sidelines of the presentation ofIndiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, it was Harrison Ford who received it. Ford, an old acquaintance of George Lucas, who directed the actor in American Graffiti before offering him the legendary roles of Han Solo and Indiana Jones.

Speaking of old acquaintances: the presence of George Lucas at Cannes this year makes us even more hopeful that another of his friends, a certain Francis Ford Coppola, will also come and take a look. Not as a tourist, but to present Megalopolis, his latest film, recently revealed to a few hand-picked spectators – a film which is already, by its simple existence (Coppola has dreamed of it for 40 years) one of the cinema events of the year. Coppola and Lucas are in fact old accomplices, who met in the Warner studios at the end of the sixties, when the first was filming the musical The Valley of Happiness and that the second dreamed of one day becoming a director.

The closing ceremony of the Cannes festival, presented by Camille Cottin, will be broadcast live, Saturday May 25, on Brut and France 2.