Michel Piccoli makes his stage debut at the age of 18. We catch a glimpse of him in the cinema as early as 1945, but it's only in 1963 in Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt that he truly achieves fame. In 1967, My Love, My Love by Nadine Trintignant, is the first film he presents in Competition at the Festival de Cannes. He meets Luis Buñuel with whom he shoots five films, including Belle de jour. He becomes the fetish actor of Claude Sautet whom he accompanies to Cannes in 1970 for The Things of Life. He co-stars in 1973 in Marco Ferreri's La Grande Bouffe that sets off a scandal in Cannes. In 1980, he wins the Best Actor's Award for his performance in Marco Bellochio's Leap into the Dark, while The Beautiful Troublemaker by Jacques Rivette, in which he plays an ageing painter, wins the 1991 Grand Prix of the Jury. In 2005, he presents at Cannes the 3rd feature which he's directed, C'est pas tout à fait la vie dont j'avais rêvé.
Jury attendance
- Member Feature films, 2007
- President Caméra d'Or, 1999