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\u00c9milie Dequenne, who won best actress honors at age 17 at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in the Belgian film \u201cRosetta,\u201d died on Sunday in Villejuif, France. She was 43.<\/p>\n
Her death, at a hospital, was confirmed by Marie-Laure Calmette, an assistant to Ms. Dequenne\u2019s longtime agent, Danielle Gain. Ms. Dequenne had been diagnosed with adrenal cancer.<\/p>\n
Ms. Dequenne was starring in her first film role when she played the lead in \u201cRosetta<\/a>,\u201d a 1999 film directed by the brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The film, about a working-class teenager fighting to hang onto a job, won the Palme d\u2019Or, the top honor at Cannes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ms. Dequenne revealed in October 2023 that she had been diagnosed with adrenocortical carcinoma, a rare and aggressive adrenal cancer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n She talked about her diagnosis in an interview on the television show \u201cSept \u00e0 Huit<\/a>,\u201d on the French network TF1, which aired in December 2024.<\/p>\n Ms. Dequenne appeared in nearly 50 films and won numerous awards, including a C\u00e9sar, one of France\u2019s top film honors, for best supporting actress in \u201cLove Affair(s),\u201d (\u201cLes Choses Qu\u2019on Dit, les Choses Qu\u2019on Fait\u201d), a 2020 film directed by Emmanuel Mouret.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n She was perhaps best known for her roles in the 2012 drama \u201cOur Children<\/a>\u201d (\u201c\u00c0 perdre la raison\u201d), by the Belgian director Joachim Lafosse, and \u201cRosetta.\u201d When she auditioned for the role in \u201cRosetta,\u201d she made an immediate impression, Luc Dardenne recalled in an interview<\/a> with the French radio station FranceInfo that aired on Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first day she shot in front of a real camera, she managed to bring the whole team together,\u201d Mr. Dardenne told the Belgian broadcaster RTBF<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s what happened, and it got better and better as the shoot progressed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ms. Dequenne was born in Beloeil, Belgium, on Aug. 29, 1981. She studied drama at the Acad\u00e9mie de Musique et des Arts de la Parole de Baudour in Belgium. She began her acting career at a company based in a region of Belgium near the border with France.<\/p>\n She is survived by her husband, Michel Ferracci, and a daughter, Milla Savarese, with her former partner, the Belgian DJ Alexandre Savarese.<\/p>\n Last May, while her cancer was in remission, she celebrated the 25th anniversary of \u201cRosetta\u201d at the Cannes Film Festival. She also promoted a new film, \u201cSurvive<\/a>,\u201d released last year. Most recently, she appeared in \u201cTKT,\u201d a film about bullying that is set at a Belgian high school.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n