Berlin Film Festival honours Isabelle Huppert

Berlin's Berlinale film festival has honoured French actress Isabelle Huppert, presenting the 68-year-old with an Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement, reported dpa.

Huppert took part in an awards ceremony Tuesday evening via a video link from Paris, festival organizers said.

The actress had to cancel her originally planned visit to the film festival at short notice because she had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Festival director Mariette Rissenbeek described Huppert as a "very passionate actress."

Her colleague Carlo Chatrian spoke of Huppert's roles as "characters against the mainstream."

Actor Lars Eidinger, Huppert's co-star in her latest film "About Joan", spoke of her supposedly closed appearance. "The moment the camera rolls, it opens," Eidinger observed.

"About Joan" was presented on Tuesday evening as a special gala screening at the Berlinale.

In the film by French director Laurent Larivière, Huppert and Eidinger, 46, play a couple with a significant age difference.

The film festival organizers called Huppert an inimitable artist "who does not hesitate to take risks or to oppose the mainstream".

Several films which included Huppert such as "8 Women" by François Ozon, "Things to Come" by Mia Hansen-Løve and Paul Verhoeven's thriller "Elle" will also be shown during the Berlinale.