Louis Delluc
Louis Delluc (14 October 1890 – 22 March 1924) was an Impressionist French film director, screen writer and film critic.
Biography
Delluc was born in Cadouin in 1890. His family moved to Paris in 1903. After graduating from the university, he became a literary critic. During the First World War, he was married to the Belgian actress Ève Francis, who acted in many of his films.
In 1917, Delluc began his career in film criticism. He went on to edit Le Journal du Ciné-club and Cinéa, establish film societies, and direct seven films. He was one of the early Impressionist filmmakers, along with Abel Gance, Germaine Dulac, Marcel L'Herbier, and Jean Epstein. His films are notable for their focus on ordinary events and the natural setting rather than on adventures and antics. Many of his early film writings for French newspapers were collected in the volume Cinema et cie (1919). He also wrote one of the first books on Charlie Chaplin (1921; translated into English in 1922).
Delluc directed his seventh film, L'Inondation (The Flood), in 1924. Filming took place in very poor weather conditions and Delluc contracted pneumonia. He died in Paris several weeks later, before the film was released.
Louis Delluc Prize
The Louis Delluc Prize (French: Prix Louis-Delluc) is a French film award presented annually since 1937. The award is bestowed to the Best Film and Best First Film of the year on the second week of each December. The jury is composed of 20 members, consisting of a group of film critics and figures who are culturally significant. Gilles Jacob is the president. The meeting is at le Fouquet's restaurant in Champs-Élysées.
The award was created in 1937 in view of the decision of the L'Académie française to award its Grand Prix du Cinema to films that were created by French filmmakers. Twenty-four film critics including Maurice Bessy and Marcel Idzkowski established the prize to honor Louis Delluc (1890–1924), the first French journalist to specialize in cinema and founder of the ciné-clubs.
