The Prix Jean Vigo is an award in the French cinema given annually since 1951 to a French film director, in homage to Jean Vigo. Since 1960, the award has been given to both a director of a feature film and to a director of a short film. The award is usually given to a young director, for their independent spirit and stylistic originality.
The Jean Vigo Prize has been awarded since 1951 as a tribute to film director Jean Vigo. It was created by Claude Aveline,[1] the executor of Jean Vigo's will, Vigo's daughter Luce Vigo, and a number of filmmakers. Members of the first jury, in 1951, included Jacques Becker, Jean Cocteau, Paul Gilson, Georges Sadoul, and Luce Vigo.[2]
The award recognizes films "for their inventiveness, originality and intellectual independence."[3] The goal of the award is to "recognize a future auteur, [to] discover through him a passion and a gift," according to the 2018 jury.[4]
Spain's Punto de Vista International Documentary Film Festival presents the Premio Jean Vigo to the best director. The award aims to strengthen both the spirit that originally inspired the festival and the festival's commitment to the work of Jean Vigo. The creation of this prize was made possible thanks to the close ties between Punto de Vista and the family of the French filmmaker.
In 2005, the festival paid tribute to Vigo on the centenary of his birth. Luce Vigo, film critic and daughter of Vigo and Elizabeth Lozinska, attended that year. The festival provided a retrospective of Vigo's entire filmography and also represented the first step in a relationship that resulted in the award. The festival took its name, Punto de Vista (English: "point of view"), as a tribute to Vigo, the first director to refer, in the 1930s, to a “documented point of view” as a distinctive sign of a form of filmmaking that commits the filmmaker.