June 27

Isabelle Adjani is born in Paris, 1955. She received a record five César Awards as Best Actress and, at age 20, was the youngest Best Actress nominee in Oscar history—until 12-year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes nabbed a nod for 2002’s Whale Rider. Adjani’s nomination came for The Story of Adele H, a 1975 film about author Victor Hugo’s daughter (Adjani) and her obsessive pursuit of a young lieutenant. The drama, based on Adele Hugo’s actual diary, was directed by François Truffaut, who took seven years to bring the story to the screen. Truffaut reflected on his L’Enfant sauvage (1970), a character-laden historical picture, when discussing the differing scope of the Hugo tale. “If it is difficult to construct an unanimistic intrigue involving a dozen characters whose paths entwine,” the director said, “it is almost as difficult to write an animistic film focusing on a single person. I believe that it was this solitary aspect which attracted me most to this project. Having produced love stories involving two and three people, I wanted to attempt to create a passionate experience involving a character where the passion was one-way only.”