Émilie Dequenne, the Belgian actress known for her award-winning role in “Rosetta” at the Cannes Film Festival, has passed away at the age of 43. According to reports from her family and agent, she died on Sunday at a hospital near Paris after battling a rare form of cancer. In 2023, Dequenne publicly shared that she had been diagnosed with adrenocortical carcinoma.
Dequenne gained recognition at just 18 years old when she won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1999 for her role in “Rosetta,” a film by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne. In the film, she played a young woman struggling to escape her harsh life in a caravan park with her alcoholic mother. “Rosetta” also won the prestigious Palme d’Or that year.
Born in Belœil, Belgium, in 1981, Dequenne showed an interest in performing from an early age, studying drama at the Académie de Musique de Baudour.
Émilie Dequenne gained widespread recognition in France, particularly for her role alongside Catherine Deneuve in the 2009 film The Girl on the Train, which was based on the true story of a woman who falsely claimed to be the victim of an antisemitic attack. Dequenne also portrayed police officer Laurence Renauld in the French series The Missing.
In 2012, she earned the Un Certain Regard Best Actress award at Cannes for her performance in Our Children, a psychological drama inspired by the real-life story of a Belgian woman who killed her five children. Throughout her career, she received multiple César Award nominations, ultimately winning Best Supporting Actress in 2021 for her role in the romantic comedy Love Affair(s).
Reflecting on her challenging role in Our Children, Dequenne spoke in 2013, explaining that she would return to her family every weekend to recharge. She described making the film as something one must “survive.”
More recently, Dequenne appeared in Close, Lukas Dhont’s heartfelt drama about boyhood, which took her back to Cannes in 2022. She noted a connection between her young co-star and her own breakthrough performance in Rosetta.
Émilie Dequenne expressed her deep emotions upon returning to the Cannes Film Festival after 23 years, marking the 25th anniversary of Rosetta. She reflected on the connection between herself and her young co-star, Eden Dambrine, noting the intense, all-encompassing role they both played in their respective films. She described Rosetta as a powerful movie, with the lead character present in every scene, a sentiment she felt was mirrored in Dambrine’s role.
Dequenne’s most recent film was Survive, a post-apocalyptic thriller directed by Frédéric Jardin, which was released earlier this year. Despite working in England, France, and Belgium, she was not interested in Hollywood, stating that meetings there didn’t align with the types of films she enjoyed making. She found the industry there to be unappealing, expressing that it didn’t offer the kind of fun she sought.
She is survived by her husband, director and producer Michel Ferracci, and their daughter, Milla Savarese.