Michael Mann to Receive Lumiere Award at 17th Edition of Thierry Fremaux’s Lumiere Festival

Michael Mann is set to receive the Lumiere Award at the 17th edition of the Lumière Festival in Lyon this fall. The festival, headed by Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux, celebrates classic films and honors iconic filmmakers and actors every year.

Previous Lumiere honorees include some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Jane Fonda, Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, and Tim Burton, alongside European stars, such as Isabelle Huppert and Catherine Deneuve. The Lumière Award honors a figure for their entire body of work and their connection to the history of cinema.

Throughout his career, which spans forty years so far, Mann has delivered cult films such as “Heat,” “The Last of the Mohicans,” “The Insider” and “Collateral,” and has worked with Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tom Cruise, James Caan, Natalie Portman or Gong Li.

“He is both rooted in a strong Hollywood tradition and embodies a personal and innovative
cinema through his choice of subjects, his approach to directing, storytelling, and aesthetics.
With true independence—and at times a certain solitude—he is one of the most important
filmmakers in the history of cinema,” said the Lumiere Institute in a statement, adding that Mann combines “the rigor of an auteur with the pleasure of popular cinema.”

Mann is currently busy with multiple projects. After making a prominent festival comeback with the biopic “Ferrari” starring Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz at Venice in 2023, and returning to television with a pilot for his “Tokyo Vice” series reboot, Mann is now preparing to shoot “Heat 2,” the hotly anticipated sequel to his 1995 crime drama starring Pacino and De Niro.

Mann, who previously visited Lyon in 2017 for a screening of “Heat” introduced by Guillermo del Toro,
responded to the Lumière Festival’s invitation by saying, “The answer is : great, love to do it. The previous Lumière with Guillermo was a brilliant night. Pure cinema. And a great time. It all sounds brilliant. I’m in,” Mann said.

Frémaux, meanwhile, said, “To honor Michael Mann with the Lumière Award on the rue du Premier-Film is both a dream and a source of pride. Straight out of Hollywood mythology, he is a major artist whose mark on cinema is everlasting.”

‘We’ve lost count of his masterpieces,’ said Bertrand Tavernier of him.” Frémaux continued, “A stylist and an auteur, Michael Mann has infused his films with a vision of the world and of history that is inseparable from a dazzling cinematic style. Welcoming him to Lyon this October will be a major event for all lovers of cinema.”

As per tradition, Mann will follow the footsteps of previous Lumiere award recipients and will direct a short reimagining “La Sortie des usines Lumière” which was filmed by Louis and Auguste Lumiere in 1895.