Miriam Margolyes, Lloyd Kaufman, and Eddie Cochran Honored with Raindance Icon Awards

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The awards will be presented as part of the festival's 34th edition (17-26 June).

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Acclaimed actress, writer, comedian and national treasure Miriam Margolyes and iconic American film director and co-founder of Troma Entertainment film studio Lloyd Kaufman are the recipients of this year's Raindance Icon Awards, presented as part of the festival's 34th edition (17-26 June).

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Miriam will receive her Icon Award at Raindance's Opening Gala on 17 June, after the UK premiere of APRIL X (dir: Michel K. Parandi, USA). Lloyd Kaufman's daughter, Lily Hayes Kaufman (whose debut feature Occupy Cannes has its UK Premiere at Raindance on 18 June) will accept her father's Icon Award on his behalf.

A posthumous Raindance Icon Award will be presented to rock & roll icon Eddie Cochran – the influential subject of closing gala EDDIE COCHRAN: DON'T FORGET ME (dir: Kirsty Bell, UK). Presented to Eddie's sister and mum, this Icon Award is set to be displayed alongside his original Gretsch guitar and his other trophies at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

Born in Oxford, England in 1941 and educated at Newnham College, Cambridge, Miriam Margolyes is a veteran of stage and screen, an award-winning actress who achieved success on both sides of the Atlantic.

Winner of the BAFTA Best Supporting Actress award in 1993 for The Age of Innocence, she also received Best Supporting Actress at the 1989 LA Critics Circle Awards for her role in Little Dorrit and a Sony Radio Award for Best Actress in 1993 for her unabridged recording of Oliver Twist.

Major film credits during her long and celebrated career include Yentl, Little Shop of Horrors, I Love You To Death, End of Days, Sunshine, Scorsese's The Age of Innocence, Cold Comfort Farm and Magnolia. She starred in Stephen Hopkins' The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, Modigliani, Istvan Szabo's Being Julia and Ladies in Lavender (dir. Charles Dance, with Dames Smith & Dench).

Margolyes was Professor Sprout in two of the Harry Potter films. In 2013 Margolyes played Lady Thyrza in The Legend of Longwood, set in an Irish fantasy village. In 2014 she played Odamee Marshall in the heart-warming film Outlier, and Maria in Jumaan Short's award-winning short film Mother.

In 2023 she played Judy in My Happy Endings with Andie MacDowell and Sally Phillips, and in 2024 completed filming Holy Days in New Zealand playing Sister Luke. In 2025 she starred in the short film A Friend of Dorothy directed by Lee Knight. It was nominated for an Oscar in 2026.

Her extensive list of credits also encompass television, radio, the stage, and voice work ranging from audio books to voicing many TV documentaries – she is regarded as the most accomplished female voice in Britain.

She has also written three books about her life to huge acclaim, with her fourth book Miriam's Full English published in 2026.

Miriam Margolyes shares:

“Can't believe at 85, I'm winning awards and possibly even deserving them!! Everyone in our business knows it's a TEAM EVENT and I've shamelessly used other peoples' talents to get there. Mind you, it took a while. Jeremy Irons gave me lessons in film acting in ‘BEING JULIA' but I've never known how to scale down a perf. I'm thrilled and grateful and just wish Mummy and Daddy could know I made it in the end.”

Lloyd Kaufman is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. Alongside producer Michael Herz, he is the co-founder of Troma Entertainment film studio (founded in 1974, it is the longest running independent film studio in the world). He is the director of many of their feature films, such as The Toxic Avenger (1984) and Tromeo and Juliet (1996).

Many of the strategies employed by him at Troma have been credited with making the film industry significantly more accessible and decentralized.

Lloyd Kaufman and Troma have become icons in the cult-movie world, and Troma has distributed over 1000 films. Lloyd has continued his career as a director in addition to producing, and Troma has turned out such films as Monster in the Closet (1986), Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986), Combat Shock (1984), Troma's War (1988), Fortress of Amerikkka (1989), and Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006), which follows an army of undead chickens as they seek revenge on a fast food palace.

The Raindance Icon Award is the festival's signature award, honouring and celebrating the icons of independent cinema in the UK and internationally: those who make an authentic and iconic impression via the medium of film.

Previous Raindance Icon Award recipients include Celia Imrie, Jason Isaacs, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Winterbottom, David Yates, Vanessa Redgrave, Jonathan Pryce, Gemma Arterton, Sir Michael Caine, Sally Hawkins, Jude Law, Olivia Colman, Terry Gilliam, Guy Ritchie, and Ken Loach.

Posthumous Raindance Icon Awards have been presented to Dame Joan Plowright (accepted by Tamsin Olivier, daughter of Joan Plowright and Laurence Olivier) and Helen McCrory (accepted by Damian Lewis).

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwtv/article/Miriam-Margolyes-Lloyd-Kaufman-Eddie-Cochran-to-Receive-Raindance-Icon-Awards-20260610)._