Elaine Uzan Leary, La Médaille d’Or de Solidarité et Valeur

Born Elaine Vivian L’Heureux in Auburn, Maine of a Franco-American family, Elaine’s many accomplishments reflect a true Francophone and Francophile passion.

Elaine is a graduate of Stetson University in Deland, Florida; Universite de Strasbourg, France; Middlebury College Graduate School in Vermont; and Emerson College in Boston.  She began her professional career as a French teacher in Connecticut in 1969 then in Massachusetts starting in 1973.

In Boston, Elaine became involved in many French organizations and co-founded the school of the Alliance Francaise of Boston in 1973, as well as the French Theatre in Boston, Compagnie Bernard Uzan.  She served as trustee for the Boston-Strasbourg Sister City Association and launched the French-American Chamber of Commerce of New England.

From 1985 to1997 Elaine‘s career moved to textbook publishing for Heinle & Heinle Publishers and Houghton-Mifflin Company, where as Marketing Manager she received many awards for the successful promotion of materials for the French language, other foreign languages and English as a second language in both secondary schools and colleges.

Her last position in Boston was as Executive Director of the French Library and Cultural Center/Alliance Francaise of Boston from 2001-2008, known as the French Cultural Center.  In 2003 she created the first Fete de la Francophonie at Boston City Hall, bringing together all French-related organizations in New England for the first time. Elaine has created many scholarships for students in Boston public schools and a French after-school program for Haitian children, and most recently chairs the scholarship committee for the American Society of the French Order of Merit, which supports bilingual education in New York public schools.

In June 2008, she was a member of the New England committee for the 400th anniversary of the founding of the City of Quebec, which proudly presented a monument to Quebec honoring the French Canadians who came to New England.

Since summer 2008, Elaine has been the Executive Director of the American Friends of Blerancourt in New York, which supports the Franco-American Museum, Chateau de Blerancourt, in Picardy, France.  She is responsible for the traveling exhibition “American Women Rebuilding France 1917-1924,” seen by over 110,000 people to date and scheduled to be in eight other U.S. cities during 2014-2015.

Past French government awards: 2005  Chevalier dans l’Ordre National du Mérite; 1988  Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Letters.  Elaine currently lives in New York City near her daughter Vanessa Uzan, Managing Director of Uzan International Artists, a talent management company.

Jerome Henry Rudes, La Médaille d’Or du Rayonnement Culturel

A dual citizen of both the United States and France, Jerry Henry Rudes has been working in French-American cultural exchange for over 30 years. In 1981, he created the French-American Centers, not-for-profit teaching organizations based in Aix-en-Provence, Avignon, Marseille, Montpellier and Lyon.

As of 1984, he launched the Avignon Film Festival as a crossroads for independent cinema between France and the U.S. In 1993, in collaboration with the Harvard Film Archive, Jerry created a sister event stateside, the Avignon/Cambridge Film Festival, which moved to the French Institute/Alliance Française in Manhattan and was re-named the Avignon/New York Film Festival.

In 2004, Jerry co-authored Samuel Fuller’s A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking (Alfred Knopf), which won the prize for Best Non-Fiction of the Year from the Los Angeles Times. He also supervised the French version of the book, Un Troisième Visage (Editions Allia), in 2011.

In 2008, Jerry launched Cinémonde Soirées, a year-round series of invitation-only evenings in Manhattan for film lovers and filmmakers with sneak previews of thought-provoking films from around the world. Among the filmmakers who have presented their work over the last five years at Cinémonde are Mary Stuart Masterson, John Turturro, Susan Seidelman, Matthew Broderick, Patrice Leconte, Laurent Tirard and Jennifer Devoldère.

Since 2002, Jerry has served as U.S. Coordinator for LVT, a world leader in subtitling based in France. In that capacity, he has supervised the subtitling of hundreds of films, including many official selections for the Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Sundance, Rome, Tribeca and Toronto Film Festivals. The work has brought Jerry into collaboration with great storytellers from around the world, including Michael Moore, Spike Lee, Leos Carax, Luc Besson, Ken Burns, Emanuele Crialese, John Sayles, Whit Stillman, Ang Lee, Philippe Le Guay, Wayne Wang, Takashi Miike and Benoit Jacquot.

Bernard Métais, Ph.D., P.E., La Médaille d’Or du Rayonnement Culturel

Bernard Métais is a major contributor to the rayonnement culturel de la France by successfully applying his impressive academic credentials (M.S. Ecole Centrale de Paris, Ph.D. Technische Universität of Karlsruhe, Germany, Visiting Professor at the University of Minnesota, registered System Engineer in California and New York, Bechtel Fellow) and his extensive worldwide executive experience in the engineering and construction industry to present and illustrate the technical and scientific aspects of French culture to a diverse American audience including the American Association of Mechanical Engineers, the World Trade Association, the American Association of Accordionists, and many Alliances Françaises in the United States.

He has produced more than a hundred cultural articles and presentations, mostly related to French industrial prowess and to Paris, his native city, on topics such as the metric system, the Eiffel Tower, la Musette à Paris, 2,000 years of Paris, Paris Underground, l’Argot Parisien, the first 40 years of the automobile, fractals in art, the French in California, the French TGV, and Saint Germain des Prés.

He has also served as a board member or president of several non-profit Franco-American organizations such as the Ingénieurs et Scientifiques de France (West Coast Chapter), the Alliance Française de Berkeley, the Federation of Alliances Françaises USA, the World of Accordions Museum, and Notre Dame des Victoires Parish in San Francisco.