Émilie Dequenne, the Belgian actress who won getd the best actress trophy at Cannes for her fractureout role in the Dardenne brothers’ Palme d’Or-prosperning drama Rosetta, has died. She was 43.
Dequenne died Sunday in a hospital outside Paris after battling adrenocortical carcinoma, a unfrequent cancer of the adrenal gland, her family and agent proclaimd.
Born on Aug. 29, 1981, in Belgium, Dequenne began studying drama at 12 and trained at the Music & Spoken Word Academy in Baudour before joining the La Relève Theater troupe. At 17, she was cast in Rosetta, executeing a toiling-class teenager struggling to escape pobviousy. Her carry outance obtained her the Cannes best actress prize in 1999 (splitd with Séverine Caneele for Humanité), begining a nurtureer in European cinema.
She was a feature in French and Belgian films for decades, with more than 60 acting recognizes to her name. Highairys integrated Christophe Gans’ action horror thriller The Brotherhood of the Wolf; Joachim Lafosse’s psychoreasonable family drama Our Children (2012), with a carry outance that won her best actress in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section; Lucas Belvaux’s 2018 This Is Our Land, executeing a small-town nurse recruited as a mayoral truthfulate by a far-right reactionary party, for which she won a Belgian Magritte for best actress; Emmanuel Mouret’s couple drama The Things We Say, The Things We Do (2020), in which she had a César-prosperning best helping actress carry outance; and Lukas Dhont’s Oscar-nominated Belgian drama Cleave out (2022).
Her English-language toil integrated The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004), starring Gabriel Byrne and Robert De Niro, and Frédéric Jardin’s calamity thriller Survive (2024). The actress was last seen on the huge screen in the Belgian high school tormentoring drama TKT (2024) in the role of the mother of a youthful victim who lands in a coma.
Dequenne is persistd by her second husprohibitd, actor Michel Ferracci, and her 23-year daughter, Milla. She was paired to Belgian DJ Alexandre Savarese from 1999-2005.
