French directorClaude Lelouch(A Man and a Woman,Happy New Year, The Beautiful Story) will be honored at this years Venice Film Festival with the Cartier Glory to the FilmmakerAward, a prizededicated to a personality who has made a particularly original contribution to the contemporary film industry.

Lelouchwill receive the prize on Monday, Sept. 2 at VenicesSala Grande ahead of the out-of-competition screening of his latest feature, of his new feature, Finalement, a musical fantasy starringKad Merad (Welcome to the Sticks, The Chorus). Elsa Zylberstain, Michel Boujenah, Sandrine Bonnaire, Barbara Pravi, and Franoise Gillard co-star. The film was produced by Les Films 13in co-production withFrance 2 CinmaandLaurent Dassault Rond-Point. Metropolitan Filmexport is handling international sales. Claude Lelouchis one of the top directors of French cinema, an excellent interpreter of its quality, albeit alien to its main currents, said Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera. He is also a very prolific filmmaker, having directed over sixty feature films. A precocious film lover, the author of shorts and musical videos, a cinematographer, screenwriter, actor, and producer.

Calling him an atypical and unclassifiable filmmaker, Barbera singled out Lelouchs 1966 feature A Man and a Woman, starring Anouk Aime and Jean-Louis Trintignant, which won the Golden Palme in Cannes and went on to win two Oscars, for best foreign language film and for best original screenplay, for Lelouch and co-writer Pierre Uytterhoeven.

Claude Lelouchs career resembles a symphony played out across a lifetime, said Cyrille VigneronPresident and CEO of Cartier, which sponsors the award. His filmography spans over sixty-four years, with many award-winning filmsLelouchs characters are incredibly human, his life stories stay in our minds, in particular his unwavering obsession for beautiful love stories. What would Love do without Claude Lelouch to express its unstoppable power?

The81thVenice film festival runsAug. 28-Sept. 7.