Veteran film star Robert de Niro will receive an honorary Palme d'Or for lifetime achievement at the opening ceremony of the 78th Cannes Film Festival which starts on 13 May.
"I have very strong feelings about the Cannes Festival," said the 81-year-old American. "Especially today, when so many things in the world separate us, Cannes brings us together. It's like coming home."
Fourteen years after chairing the festival's jury in 2011, the actor, director and producer will be feted for Oscar-winning roles over 60 years in classic films such as Raging Bull, Godfather II and Taxi Driver, which claimed the Palme d'Or in 1976.
"There are faces that stand in for the 7th art and lines that leave an indelible mark on cinephilia," said the organisers.
De Niro, who was born in New York, first came to prominence in the films of Brian De Palma in the late 1960s.
His artistic partnership with fellow New Yorker Martin Scorsese has passed into cinema legend spawning performances as the conflicted boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull and the psychotic ex-marine Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.
"From petty thug to mafioso, De Niro never ceased to lend his natural authority to Italian-American mafia figures," said the festival organisers.
In 2002, De Niro founded the TriBeCa Film Festival as part of an effort to help reinvigorate a neglected district of New York.
His most recent appearance in Cannes was for the release of Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon, with Leonardo DiCaprio in May 2023.
Based on David Grann’s book, it is set in 1920s Oklahoma and depicts the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the Reign of Terror.
Previous honorary Palme d'Or awards have gone to the likes of Harrison Ford, Forest Whikater, Tom Cruise, Jodie Foster and Meryl Streep.
A day after the award ceremony, De Niro will meet festival-goers for a masterclass on the stage of the Debussy Theatre.
The Cannes Film Festival runs from 13 to 24 May.
