European Film Academy to Honor Julie Delpy

The French actress and director will receive the academy's European Achievement in World Cinema prize.

The European Film Academy will honor French actress and director Julie Delpy with its European Achievement in World Cinema award.

Delpy has been a feature on the European film scene since her feature debut as the 14-year-old "wise young girl" in Jean-Luc Godard's Detective (1985). Lead roles followed, including in Bertrand Tavernier's period drama Beatrice (1987), for which Delpy received a Cesar nomination as most promising actress.

Her international breakthrough came with Agnieszka Holland's Europa Europa in 1990, and in 1991 she received her first EFA nomination, as European actress of the year, for playing Sam Shepard's young lover in Volker Schlondorff's Homo Faber.

In her career as an actress, Delpy has worked with many of the greats of European and U.S. independent cinema: with Krzysztof Kieslowski in his Three Colours trilogy, with Jim Jarmusch in Broken Flowers and of course with Richard Linklater, with whom Delpy made the acclaimed Before trilogy: Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013). Delpy co-wrote all three films together with Linklater and Ethan Hawke and received an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay for both Before Sunset and Before Midnight.

The multi-hyphenate has also gone behind the camera, directing such features as 2 Days in Paris, a best European film nominee in 2007, and its sort-of sequel 2 Days in New York (2012); the period horror film The Countess (2009) and French-language comedy Lola (2015). Her 1970s-set comedy Le Skylab won the special prize of the jury at the San Sebastian film festival in 2012.

Delpy is currently in pre-production on My Zoe, which will co-star Gemma Arterton, Richard Armitage and Daniel Bruhl. She will receive her European Achievement in World Cinema honor at the 30th European Film Awards in Berlin on Dec. 9.