Woody Allen

Beginning in 1952 when the Cecil B. deMille Award was presented to its namesake visionary director, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has awarded its most prestigious prize 66 times.

For over 40 years the HFPA has recorded famous and celebrated actors, actresses and filmmakers. The world's largest collection of its kind - over 10,000  items- is now in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Margaret Herrick Library.

When the HFPA visited the set of Woody Allen’s first ever TV project in New York last spring it was still without title. Now Crisis in Six Scenes is streaming on Amazon.

It’s been a busy year for Woody Allen, a Cecil B. deMille Award recipient as well as Globe winner for the screenplays of Purple Rose of Cairo and Midnight in Paris.

After being invited to open the Cannes film festival, Woody Allen is releasing his 52nd feature film. Café Society is another erudite farce, which gracefully melds slapstick and satire in a love letter both to Hollywood’s Golden Age and to his autobiographical middle class Jewish East Coast milieu.

The opening film for the Cannes 2016 International Film Festival is Woody Allen’s Café Society. Amazon also commissioned an original series from Allen – his first foray into episodic fiction.

Amazon Studios – the film production and distribution division of the digital retail behemoth is a big player in Cannes this year. There are five Amazon films here this year: Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon, The Handmaiden by Park Chan-Wook, two films by Jim Jarmush: Paterson and the Stooges documentary Gimme Danger plus, of course the opening film, Woody Allen’s Café Society.

The 69th Cannes Film Festival kicked off  with Woody Allen’s Café Society which has its morning press screening in advance of the evening gala and the customary glitz of the montée des marches. The 80 year-old director, a festival favorite, climbed the red-carpeted steps of the Palais du Cinema along with his cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kirsten Stewart, Blake Lively and Corey Stoll (Steve Carell and Parker Posey also play in the film but did not make the trip to the Croisette).

He has won four Golden Globes during his career and now George Clooney will be honored with the 2015 Cecil B. deMille Award.

    The HFPA's recent trip to New York for a series of interviews was topped off by a visit from Woody Allen, who is to receive the association's Cecil B. deMille Award for his outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.