„Die Europa“, the main award of the Braunschweig International Filmfestival, goes to the French actress Sandrine Bonnaire. The award is endowed with 20.000 Euro and donated by the main sponsor Volkswagen Financial Services. “A film with her can never be bad“, is what Focus wrote on the 50th birthday about the autodidact who grew up in a French working-class family as number seven of eleven children. When she was 16, she was discovered by Maurice Pialat and was awarded the César for her role in A NOS AMOURS (TO OUR LOVES, 1983). In 1985, she received the second César for Agnès Vardas’s SANS TOIT NI LOI (VAGABOND); she has acted in films by Téchiné, Leconte, Rivette, Wargnier and Doillon. In 1995, she was awarded the prize in Chabrol’s LA CEREMONIE (A JUDGEMENT IN STONE) for best actress in Venice. In 2007, ARD television dedicated a whole series of films to her on her 40th birthday. The unconventional actress has worked conspicuously often with female directors in her 66 films, and she has an independent and astute eye for the roles she chooses. What do filmmakers love about her? She is “famous for her beautiful sternness which she can cause to disappear from one second to the next” – is what the FAZ wrote. She is also successful behind the camera: with the prize-winning documentary film ELLE S’APPELLE SABINE (HER NAME IS SABINE), she portrays her autistic sister; she has also made documentaries about the musicians Higelin and Marianne Faithful. She herself wrote the creenplay for her feature film debut J’ENRAGE DE SON ABSENCE (MADDENED BY HIS ABSENCE, 2012)