Cannes Film Festival to honor Michelle Yeoh

April 6 (UPI) -- In a year filled with them, Michelle Yeoh is picking up another accolade. The Cannes Film Festival and Kering announced that the Oscar winner would be honored with the Women In Motion award at the festival in May.

The Women in Motion Award and dinner honors women and their contributions to cinema. Previous recipients include Viola Davis, Salma Hayek, Geena Davis, Jane Fonda and Isabelle Huppert.

"Together with the Festival de Cannes, we wanted to recognize her significant contribution to cinema, and her ability to inspire future generations of talent," Kering chairman and CEO François-Henri Pinault said in a press release. "Presenting her with the Women In Motion Award was the obvious choice."

Yeoh, 60, won her first Oscar for the starring role in Everything Everywhere All at Once. She is the first actress of Asian descent to win a Best Actress Oscar.

Yeoh served on the Cannes Film Festival jury in 2002, which awarded the festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or, to The Pianist. Adrien Brody would go on to win a Best Actor Oscar in the role.

"I'm convinced that times are changing," she said. "Public awareness has certainly grown in recent years. It's vital that women -- in front of the camera and behind it -- keep playing roles and telling stories that reflect the diversity and complexity of the world."

Yeoh is not resting on her laurels. She has five projects coming up -- American Born Chinese, a series for Disney+ coming in May that reunites her with Ke Huy Quan and Stephanie Hsu from Everything, the next Avatar films, the film version of Wicked from director John M. Chu, and A Haunting In Venice from Kenneth Branagh.

"For the past nine years, Women In Motion has been highlighting the figures who have played a key role in changing the way women are represented in culture and the arts. Michelle Yeoh is undoubtedly one of the most outstanding examples of this commitment," Cannes Film Festival president Iris Knobloch said.

The 27th edition of the Cannes Film Festival takes place from May 16 - May 27.