B3 BEN Award für Stephen Frears

Frankfurt, 17 July 2023 - We are delighted to welcome one of the most influential British directors and producers of our time to this year's B3 Festival for the Moving Image: 

Stephen Frears will receive the B3 BEN Award for his Lifetime Achievement.

Frears' work is characterised by a wide variety of styles, themes and genres. After initially working in television, he turned to cinema in the mid-1980s. His break-through on the big screen was in 1984 with MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE, starring Daniel Day Lewis. 

During the late 1980s, Frears began working in Hollywood. Among the best-known titles of this period were DANGEROUS LIAISONS (1988) and THE GRIFTERS (1990), for which he received his first Oscar nomination.

These were followed by several other American productions such as Hi-LO-COUNTRY (1998) and HIGH FIDELITY (2000). Since the beginning of the 2000s, Frears has been working primarily in Great Britain again. He was again nominated for an Oscar for his 2006 film THE QUEEN. After directing CHÉRIE (2009) and TAMARA DREWE (2010), he made PHILOMENA (2013) with Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, which received several Oscar nominations and BAFTA awards. 

These were followed by more highly acclaimed productions THE PROGRAM (2015), about seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, and FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS (2016), starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant. Having directed VICTORIA & ABDUL (2017) with Judi Dench, Frears then returned to television with the highly acclaimed three-part BBC television series A Very English Scandal (2018), for which he won a BAFTA for Best Director. He then won an Emmy for Nick Hornby's TV series State Of The Union (2019-2022) with Rosamund Pike and Chris O'Dowd. Most recently he directed THE LOST KING (2022) about the search for the remains of Richard III, with Harry Lloyd and Sally Hawkins. He is currently working on the miniseries The Palace with Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenarts and Hugh Grant. Stephen Frears was knighted by King Charles III in 2023 for his services to film and television.

A Master Class with Stephen Frears in conversation with Adrian Wootton (OBE), CEO of Film London and the British Film Council, will take place at 2pm on Saturday 14 October.

The awards ceremony will take place at the opening of the B3 Festival on Friday 13 October at the Astor Film Lounge in Frankfurt, Germany.

With the B3 BEN Awards, the B3 Festival honours established artists and young talents. The latest recipients include internationally renowned artists such as Oliver Stone, Willem Dafoe, Steve McQueen, Anne Imhof and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.