Friday February 14, foreign media correspondents based in Paris presented the 8th Lumiere Awards, as is the case each year, in honor of French film production.
Meeting at the Forum des Images in Paris at an evening hosted by Frédéric Mitterrand, over 200 journalist members of the Académie des Lumières and foreign press correspondents in France gave the Lumiere Award for Best Film of 2002 to "Amen" by Costa-Gavras.
François Ozon was chosen as Best Director for "8 Women" and Cédric Klapisch was awarded the prize for Best Screenplay for "Euro Pudding." Other Lumiere Award winners included Jean Rochefort, for his role in "The Man on the Train" by Patrice Leconte and Isabelle Carré, for her role in "Se souvenir des belles choses" by Zabou Breitman, for Best Actor and Best Actress of the Year respectively.
The Academy voted Cécile de France as Most Promising Actress for her role in "Euro Pudding" by Cédric Klapisch. Gaspard Ulliel picked up the award for Most Promising Actor for his role in "See How They Run" by Michel Blanc.
For the first time this year, the Academy gave an award for Best French-language Film (produced outside France). Carole Laure, President of the event, and Serge Adda, President and Chief Executive of the television channel TV5 presented the award to Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne for "The Son."
A tribute was paid to Daniel Toscan du Plantier, who, in 1995, conceived and founded the Lumiere Awards along with the American journalist from Newsweek Magazine, Edward Behr.
The ceremony was organized in partnership with the International French-language television channel TV5 and the Forum des Images.
