05 · 22 · 14

Alejandro Ramírez Magaña receives Legion of Honor Award

It is with great honor that FICM announces that Alejandro Ramírez Magaña, general director of Cinépolis and president of FICM, was named a Knight of the Legion of Honor at the 67th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. Congratulations!

The Order of the Legion of Honor is the highest decoration awarded by the French government. Established by Napoleón Bonaparte in 1802, this honor is given to people of any nationality who have distinguished themselves by their extraordinary merits within civil society or the military. The Order is divided into five degrees: Chevalier or Knight, Officer, Commander, Grand Officer and Grand Cross.

Days prior to the presentation of the Order, the French Embassy in Mexico issued a press release celebrating the achievements of Alejandro Ramírez Magaña. It emphasized the importance of Cinépolis in the world film industry with more than 325 complexes, more than 3,000 theaters on the American continent, and with a presence in three of the main emerging countries: Brazil, China and India.

The social and cultural initiatives of Alejandro Ramírez Magaña were also recognized, including his fundamental role in FICM. The festival is “a real showcase of cultural diversity in a country where Hollywood production predominates”, according to the French Embassy in Mexico.

Finally, the president of FICM was recognized as an “emblematic figure of a young generation of Mexican entrepreneurs, pragmatic and daring, but conscious of their social responsibility. Alejandro Ramírez Magaña is a man of conviction and passion, deeply linked to France, to its culture and its values. For these reasons, he has all the qualities required to be named Knight of the Order of the Legion of Honor.”

At the Cannes Film Festival, the Order of the Legion of Honor has been received by figures such as Charlie Chaplin, Emir Kusturica, Jeanne Moreau, Wong Kar- Wai, Robert Altman and Robert De Niro, among others.

The commemoration of Alejandro Ramírez Magaña took place in the Ágora pavilion at the beach of the Palais des Festivals and the Order of the Legion of Honor was presented by Thierry Frémaux, general delegate of the Cannes Film Festival, who declared: "You are a man profoundly linked to culture. And the best culture: which you are passionate about. It's your curiosity about other cultures that has brought you closer to the French language and to francofilia."

In the presence of the ambassador of Mexico in France, Agustín García López Loaeza, the cultural delegate of the French Embassy in Mexico, Jean- Christophe Berjon, and FICM's general director, Daniela Michel, Alejandro Ramírez Magaña shared his first encounter with cinema: "I remember that the first cinemas my family opened in Morelia in 1977, next to my house, were inaugurated with The Little Prince, based on the book by Saint Exupèry. The film moved me a lot."

We present some photos of the event: