Phoenix 24
A celebrated actress now safeguards France’s cinematic memory.
PARIS | JULY 2026
Isabelle Huppert has been elected president of the Cinémathèque Française, becoming the first woman to lead the institution since its foundation in 1936. The acclaimed French actress succeeds filmmaker Costa-Gavras, who held the position from June 2007 until July 2026 and guided the organization through nearly two decades of exhibitions, restorations, retrospectives and international cultural activity. Huppert was chosen by the new Board of Directors on July 2 for a three-year term extending through 2029, following an annual general assembly in which members approved a renewed governance structure. Her appointment places one of France’s most internationally respected performers at the head of an organization responsible for preserving, restoring, studying and presenting one of the world’s most significant collections devoted to cinema.
The leadership team reflects a broad representation of contemporary French filmmaking, with director Olivier Assayas elected vice president alongside filmmaker Claire Denis, while producer Saïd Ben Saïd became treasurer and directors Nicolas Philibert and Alice Winocour assumed secretarial responsibilities. Huppert’s election carries additional symbolic importance because the Cinémathèque has identified greater recognition of women’s contributions to film history as one of its institutional priorities. Her arrival may strengthen efforts to recover overlooked female directors, technicians, screenwriters and performers whose work was historically excluded from dominant cinematic narratives. The appointment also connects institutional preservation with active artistic practice, placing an internationally working actress at the center of decisions concerning archives, restorations, programming, public education and the transmission of film heritage to younger audiences.
Born in Paris in 1953, Huppert began her screen career during the early 1970s and has since appeared in more than 120 films, developing a reputation for psychologically complex performances and an exceptional willingness to explore morally difficult characters. Her first major Cannes Film Festival award arrived in 1978, when she was named best actress for Claude Chabrol’s Violette Nozière, beginning a long creative association with a director who repeatedly challenged conventional representations of femininity, class and violence. She received a second Cannes acting award for Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher in 2001, delivering one of the most demanding performances of her career as a repressed music professor whose private life exposes profound emotional and sexual conflict. Huppert later worked with Haneke in Amour, the 2012 drama that won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film and reinforced her connection with European auteurs committed to uncompromising forms of cinematic expression.
Although much of her career has developed in European cinema, Huppert gained broader Hollywood recognition through Paul Verhoeven’s Elle in 2016. Her performance as a business executive who responds unpredictably after a sexual assault earned her a Golden Globe, an Independent Spirit Award and her first Academy Award nomination for best actress, an unusual achievement for a performance delivered primarily in a language other than English. She has also accumulated more César Award nominations than any other actress in the history of France’s national film honors, reflecting both her extraordinary productivity and her sustained relevance across different generations of filmmakers. Rather than becoming associated with a single genre or character type, she has moved between drama, comedy, thriller, experimental cinema and international productions while collaborating with directors including Jean-Luc Godard, Maurice Pialat, François Ozon, Hong Sang-soo and Joachim Trier.
The Cinémathèque Française occupies a distinctive place within global film culture because its mission extends far beyond screening classic movies. Its collections include films, photographs, posters, costumes, cameras, drawings, documents, personal archives and objects that reveal how cinema has evolved as an art form, industry and social institution. Through preservation laboratories, exhibitions, publications, retrospectives and the Musée Méliès, the organization protects fragile materials while making them accessible to researchers, students and the general public. Its work remains particularly urgent as physical film deteriorates, production becomes increasingly digital and questions intensify over how audiovisual heritage should be stored, restored and transmitted across changing technological formats.
Huppert’s presidency begins at a moment when cultural institutions are being asked to modernize without weakening their historical responsibilities. The Cinémathèque must continue preserving canonical works while expanding attention toward filmmakers, movements and national traditions that were previously marginalized, and it must also find ways to engage audiences whose relationship with cinema is increasingly shaped by streaming services and mobile devices. Her experience moving between independent productions, major festivals and international industries gives her a perspective that may help connect archival preservation with the realities of contemporary filmmaking. She also represents an artistic tradition in which cinema is treated not merely as entertainment but as a demanding cultural language capable of examining identity, power, desire, memory and social conflict.
Costa-Gavras leaves the presidency with recognition from the Board of Directors, the institution’s management and its staff for his long service. The Franco-Greek filmmaker, known for politically charged works such as Z and Missing, led the Cinémathèque during a period in which the preservation and public presentation of film heritage faced profound technological and financial transformation. Huppert now inherits both that institutional legacy and the responsibility of defining how the organization will respond to future challenges. Her election marks a historic transition in French cultural leadership while reaffirming the idea that those who create cinema can also play a decisive role in protecting its collective memory.
Cinema’s future depends on those willing to preserve its past.