“I need to write down memories, sentences, images”, French screen legend Emmanuelle Béart told RTL Today Radio during the Luxembourg City Film Festival 2026. “So I take time. And what we did was halfway, we did a meeting altogether.”
With great grace, the eight-time César Award nominee shared her personal perspective and approach to judging films – and what role cinema plays in difficult times.
“It’s very interesting because we have different people from different worlds, different languages. Because we speak Spanish, English, and French in this jury. And yet it’s very interesting because no one is trying to play a role that he’s not.”
Béart, for her part on the multinational jury, was ready to fight for the films she believed in. “I mean, that’s my character also. There’s one or two movies I really want to fight for.”
“So I have to get ready to fight”, she continued. “I was in a jury in Cannes with [Quentin] Tarantino as a president. And I fought like crazy for a movie that was called Tropical Malady. And nobody had seen it because it was really late and they didn’t stay awake. And I was the only one who saw that movie until the end. I was like, and I was ready to kill. I was ready to kill for this movie to get a prize and it got a prize.”
She emphasised that her personal perspective, informed by a gilded career on the silver screen, was rooted in feeling rather than technical details. “Because as an actress”, she explained, “I’m not a film critic, I’m not a director. So I’m more, let’s say, emotional towards movies.”
This approach corresponds to her appreciation for the craft of filmmaking and view of cinema as a powerful tool in troubled times. “I see the courage of the person to come here, to have built their film, to have written their film, to have found the funding, to be here today after all this long, long work.”
“What strikes me a lot is to realise how much this festival, in particular, is a kind of testimony to the world. And the world is in trouble, and the world is going badly. And everything we see in these films is how much the pain of this world. It’s weird for me. The world is in pain, and as a jury with three movies a day [to watch], you don’t get out intact.”
But, Béart added, she encourages all filmmakers to continue. “All this to say that it’s very important for me to give the opportunity to these witnesses of our time, of our life, of our world, to continue making cinema, and by all means.”
When asked whether she preferred watching the same favourite films over and over or whether she preferred seeing something brand new, the Silver Bear winner simply said that she would rather discover something completely new – something she, and the audience of LuxFilmFest, have certainly done.
The Luxembourg City Film Festival continues through to Sunday with screenings, discussions and events across the capital.
