Jean-Luc Godard. Was there ever a more interesting, enigmatic figure in French cinema? I don’t think so.

From his films, cryptic as best sometimes, to the revolution he organized along with François Truffaut which shut down the Festival de Cannes in 1968, from his reclusive almost invisible life in later years, to his latest masterpiece ‘The Image Book’, Godard was, is and always will be the Greta Garbo of French filmmakers.

So to find him in Lausanne, making a rare live appearance in present day and form, accepting the FIAF 2019 award from Frédéric Maire — President of FIAF, director of the Cinémathèque Suisse and former head of Locarno Film Festival — at the Casino de Montbenon, home of the Cinematheque Suisse, is legendary.