FRENCH ACTOR Juliette Binoche – winner of numerous international film awards, including an Oscar for her role in 1996 film The English Patient– arrived in person to pick up the annual Kerry Film Festival Maureen O'Hara award at the festival in Tralee on Saturday.
A packed theatre rose to its feet shortly after 2pm as Binoche (46) linked the red-haired doyenne of 1950s Hollywood, 90-year-old O’Hara, into the auditorium at Siamsa Tíre.
The event was the culmination of a week of films at the 11th Kerry film festival. The award for women is for excellence in film, and for being concerned with matters outside the film world. Binoche has herself displayed her concerns over human rights. Dave Fanning, festival master of ceremonies, noted that at the Cannes Film Festival in March she had spoken out against the detention of Iranian director Jafar Panahi.
Binoche, whose more well-known films in the English speaking world also include Chocolat, opposite Johnny Depp, thanked “Maureen for all the stories you have given us”. Tearfully, and clutching her Killarney Crystal vase which O’Hara said she hoped would hold flowers for many years, Binoche said her aim was to make herself empty enough to perform better as an actor, in order to receive the vision of directors, and to use her imagination.
She compared the emptiness she aimed for to “the circles” – the ancient empty spaces which she flew over by helicopter on her way to Tralee. She had been told Ireland was full of these untouched stone circles. “I was so moved by that,” she said.
She thanked the festival for inventing an excellence award for women actors specifically, saying she knew of no other festival to have such an award.
O'Hara, the Dublin-born star of The Quiet Manopposite John Wayne, the first woman chief executive of a US airline and the first person to be able to retain dual Irish-American citizenship, called strongly for encouragement for the young in Ireland, and struck a patriotic note in her long, entertaining speech.
“Just give them a chance. Let them have a go . . . give them a crack at it,” O’Hara said. This was so the youth could replace some of the great writers and performers Ireland had always produced. “Because we’re the best in the world,” she said to applause.
She had always remained Irish, “And please God I haven’t let Ireland down,” she added.
It was wonderful, O’Hara said of Binoche’s award, for the younger actor to be accepted and supported in another country.