Just found a few nice additional pictures – backstage with Halle Berry and Kate Winslet, on the Red Carpet with Sophia Loren, at the Governor’s Ball with Danny Boyle and at the Vanity Fair Party with Guillaume Canet:

006 81st Academy Awards
001 81st Academy Awards – Governor’s Ball
001 81st Academy Awards – Vanity Fair Oscar Party

I finished sorting through all the pictures of Marion at the Oscar ceremony on Sunday, and added a total of 210 (mostly HQ) pictures, including arrivals, ceremony, pressroom & after parties. I hope there are no photo duplicates. Many thanks to my friend Mariana for her help with the pictures. Marion was pictured with Penelope Cruz, Sophia Loren, Guillaume Canet and Kate Winslet. Enjoy!

Marion changed for the Vanity Fair After Party into a (probably) more comfortable dress which didn’t feature black tulle but kept the lovely blue theme. And she let her hair down.

165 81st Academy Awards
004 81st Academy Awards – Governor’s Ball
041 81st Academy Awards – Vanity Fair Oscar Party

Wow! That was a beautiful & entertaining show! Hugh Jackman can host the Oscars every year from now on if I have a say. They did break with the afore-mentioned tradition of having last year’s Best Actress present Best Actor. But I wasn’t sad at all as they really had the genius idea of assembling 5 previous winners of the same category on stage and have each address one nominee personally. So when it was time to announce this year’s Best Actress Marion Cotillard together with Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren and Shirley MacLaine appeared on stage. Marion movingly paid tribute to Kate Winslet and also ended up handing her the well deserved statuette.

Marion looked dazzingly beautiful in a night-blue/black Dior Couture dress, Dior shoes and matching Chopard jewellery. She was accompanied by Guillaume Canet and was seated just behind Amy Adams and Meryl Streep in the second row pretty much in front of the podium during the ceremony. I know there are already pictures available but I need my sleep right now and will probably put them – as well as videos – online tomorrow evening. Until then preview some pics at Just Jared and GettyImages.

Yesterday, Marion Cotillard together with an abundance of other stars attended a Pre-Oscar party thrown by Nine producer Harvey Weinstein:

And so it was on the roof of the beautifully renovated Sunset Hyatt Hotel — now called, strangely, the Andaz — that Weinstein summoned a small turbo charged group of A listers. On the outside terrace, sitting in a tight little tableau were Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, with Benny Medina at their side, plus Robert DeNiro, actress Kerry Washington, director-producer Lee Daniels — whose hot film Push with Mariah Carey will be retitled Precious, Jessica Alba, as well as Weinstein’s Marchesa designer wife Georgina Chapman, and Leonardo DiCaprio (wearing his clamped down signature baseball cap), Kevin Connolly, last year’s Best Actress (and soon to be in Weinstein’s Nine) Marion Cotillard, Zack Braff, Chace Crawford, Bai Ling, designer Ozwald Boateng and Spirit Award nominee Anthony Mackie.

While the group chatted about babies, movies, the lightly falling rain and their next movies, who breezed through but the one and only Lindsay Lohan.
• source: FoxNews.com

So far, no pictures. Don’t forget to watch Marion present at the Oscars tonight. The first stars have already arrived on the red carpet as I’m typing this.

While we’re awaiting the first pictures of the Oscars I added all the 937 pictures for the “Events 2007″ category. They have been absent ever since I encountered technical difficulties last year and had to move server. Well, they’re back now – and I even replaced lots of pics with HQ ones and added a few new ones too. Happy browsing!

Today was one of those rare occasions when I tried to create layouts myself. Results can be seen in the media parts of the website. Feedback is much appreciated! I will try to get the new layout for the main website up soon – stay tuned!

Will the Oscars break with the lovely tradition of having last year’s Best Actress hand out the Best Actor award? I hope that this will be one of the few things that remains unchanged during the “all new” Oscar ceremony tomorrow. It is to be assumed that by now Marion herself does know but we’re bound to have to wait for tomorrow. Be sure to watch the entire ceremony on TV in order not to miss Marion!

Marion Cotillard, last year’s best actress winner, told me she will be one of the presenters at Sunday night’s Oscar show, but she won’t know the category until she attends rehearsals later today and tomorrow.

Usually, the previous year’s best actress winner hands over the Academy Award to the new best actor, and so on.

‘I don’t know if that’s happening this year,’ Marion explained when we bumped into each other at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard, which seems to be party central this week.

‘They don’t want the usual expectations this year,’ Marion said of the Oscar show producers, who have pledged to ‘shake’ the show up.

I faced horrible traffic and drove into town to get the new French Elle magazine. But alas, it wasn’t on our newsstands yet. I guess it’ll arrive on Monday. I’ll have HQ scans up then.

Until then, browse the “Spécial écolo” dossier on the magazine website. There are a number of (small) cute Marion pics – in a countryside themed photoshoot. And GaKaTaN already has scans of the pictures up on his blog. And I added the new French interview to the Press Archive:

• Marion Cotillard : une actrice engagée pour la planète

Hopefully, we will soon be able to catch up with providing English translations of recent articles and news items. Please be patient as translating is quite a demanding job and my friend is doing it in her free time! Thanks for understanding.

Oh, and by the way, Marion-Cotillard.fr has a link to a special report that aired yesterday on French TV chain M6. View it here. Note: it’s not possible to watch this outside France – hopefully someone will put it up on YouTube soon!

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who hands out the Oscars invited all the nominees in the “Best foreign language film of the year” category to a special reception event. Laurent Cantet, Gotz Speilmann, Uli Edel, Yojiro Takita and Ari Folman were handed a certificate of their nomination and hosting the event were AMPAS president Sid Ganis and Marion Cotillard.

005 Foreign Language Film Award Reception

Marion Cotillard is busy in Los Angeles. Yesterday, she attended a pre-Academy Awards party hosted by the US-Ireland Alliance. The evening honoured Irish stars Brendan Gleeson and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, as well as legendary celebrity agent Hylda Queally – who happens to be Ms Cotillard’s US agent.

The latest client to sign with Ms Queally is Slumdog Millionaire star Freida Pinto. Asked about her feelings to be represented by an agent who apart from Marion also reps stars such as Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett and Penelope Cruz she said:

“I feel honoured actually to be in the same kind of group as them,” Freida gushed. “I think Hylda is a wonderful person, she knows what she’s doing and she’s very instinctual.”

I’ve added some lovely pictures to the gallery. Marion was photographed with Kate Winslet, Freida Pinto and her agent Hylda Queally. I think the straightened hair is somewhat of a new look for Marion but it suits her. And it went very well with the simple white-dotted brown dress. What do you think?

027 4th Annual ‘Oscar Wilde: Honoring The Irish In Film’ Awards

And the google alerts keep coming today! Premiere.fr’s Jean-Marc Morandini reports on his blog (translation by me):

Marion Cotillard is a one-off editor on an upcoming issue of French Elle magazine titled “Green Special”, to appear Saturday, February 21.

In this “green issue” the Oscar winning actress and long time green activist, proves to be wholeheartedly committed.

She explains why and especially how she fights every day to preserve the planet – she also reveals her struggles and actions as a eco-citizen to protect the environment.

The preview picture promises new gorgeous pictures and I’ll be sure to pick up this magazine as soon as possible!