The passing of Brigitte Bardot

The President, the General Manager, the Head of the Historical Archive, the Artistic Director of the Cinema Department, the Board of Directors and La Biennale di Venezia in its entirety remember with admiration and heartfelt affection the French actress Brigitte Bardot, an unforgettable diva and incomparable symbol of freedom in lifestyle and in thought, a widely imitated yet inimitable performer. 

In 1955, at the Venice International Film Festival, before her definitive breakthrough, Brigitte Bardot appeared on the screen in not one but two films: Doctor at Sea by Ralph Thomas and Les Grandes Manoeuvres by René Clair.

But at the Lido she electrified audiences, photographers and critics in 1958 with one of her first box-office hits Love is my Profession (En cas de malheur) by the master filmmaker Claude Autant-Lara, adapted from a novel by Georges Simenon, in which she starred alongside Jean Gabin. The film marked a historic encounter between two legends of French cinema.

Within the span of her brief yet extraordinary career, and later inthe public stances she took following her early retirement, few figures like Brigitte Bardot have so radically and profoundly challenged the dominant stereotypes of woman in the modern era.