Richard Linklater’s Latest Film to Open Chanel-Backed Nouvelles Vagues Festival in Biarritz With Sofia Coppola Set as Guest of Honor

Richard Linklater‘s “Nouvelle Vague,” a cinematic love letter to the French New Wave which bowed at Cannes, will aptly kick off the third edition of the Biarritz Film Festival, also called Nouvelles Vagues, on June 24.

On the following day, Sofia Coppola, the festival’s guest of honor, will attend a screening of “Virgin Suicides” to celebrate its 25-year anniversary and take part in a masterclass before an audience filled with film students.

Coppola’s presence at the festival reflects the involvement of Chanel, a partner of the festival whose mantra is to shine a spotlight on young talent in front and behind the camera. Chanel hosted a glamorous dinner at the Grand Café du Grand Palais in Paris in honor of the festival on June 3.

Along with Nouvelles Vagues founder and president Jérôme Pulis, general delegate Sandrine Brauer and programming director Lili Hinstin, and Chanel president of fashion Bruno Pavlovsky, many friends and ambassadors of the fashion house, as well as leading industry figures turned up at the celebratory Grand Café dinner, notably “Happening” director Audrey Diwan, author Anne Berest (“Vie Privée”), filmmaker Ramata Toulaye Sy (“Banel & Adama”), MK2 Films co-CEO Elisha Karmitz (“It Was Just an Accident”), Michele Halberstadt (“Nouvelle Vague”), producer Hugo Selignac from Paris-based Chi-Fou-Mi (“Beating Hearts”), actors Ana Girardot (“The Count of Monte Cristo”), Dali Benssalah (“Athena”), Virginie Ledoyen (“Just the Two of Us”), Finnegan Oldfield (“Alpha”) and Rebecca Marder (“Mon crime”).

Several members of this year’s jury also showed up at the event, including the filmmakers Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma (“And Their Children After Them”) and Mallory Wanecque (“Beating Hearts”). The jury will be completed by Anamaria Vartolomei (“Happening”), Nicholas Galitzine (“The Idea of You”), Sofia Carson (“The Life List”) and Malick Bodian, among others.

The festival will close with Neeraj Ghaywan’s film “Homebound,” a heartfelt India drama which played at Cannes” Un Certain Regard.