2024 was a splendid year for French cinema with successes ranging from “love phew” to the “count of Monte-Cristo”. After a tidal wave at the Oscars, “Emilia Perez” by Jacques Audiard is one of the favorites of the appointments to César, expected on Wednesday.
Audiard favorite
One month from the 50e Ceremony of César, the Academy must unveil the names of the nominees in each of the 24 categories on Wednesday.
Who to succeed “anatomy of a fall”, six César last year, including the best film and the best production? The expectations are high for Jacques Audiard, 72, and his musical in Spanish, “Emilia Perez”, on the gender transition of a Mexican drug trafficker. Visual and musical fireworks, the film has already broken the record, for a non-English-speaking film of 13 Oscar nominations on Thursday.
“The Count of Monte-Cristo”, a popular success, can also hope for many appointments, including that of the best actor for his headliner, Pierre Niney, for a few years one of the darlings of French spectators.
Nominations for another success of the year, “love phew”, from Gilles Lellouche, with François Civil and Adèle Exarchopoulos, would also allow the neck to be twisted with the reputation of the Academy, to be sometimes to be Disconnected from the public.
The choice of spectators
What place the voters, who rarely distinguish from popular comedies, will they offer “a little extra thing” from Artus, its 10 million admissions and its troop of players with disabilities?
-On the author’s cinema side, “Jim’s novel” has its chances, as well as its actor Karim Leklou, just like “Borgo”, a Corsican thriller who could offer a nomination to Hafsia Herzi, or, in a more pointed genre, ” Mercy ”, by Alain Guiraudie, Louis-Delluc Prize. More generally, the drama “with fanfare” offered very beautiful roles to Pierre Lottin (Revelation) and Benjamin Lavernhe.
No more parity?
These favorite films all have one thing in common: they are the fact of directors. After having sacred last year Justine Triet, will the César this year get closer to parity in appointments? Not won, even if Louise Courvoisier touched the public and the criticism with “twenty gods”, a first film in the form of a rural initiation story. He puts his actress Maïwene Barthelemy in the ranks for female revelation.
On the male revelation side, the appointment of Abu Sangaré, hero of the film “The story of Souleymane” which has just obtained a residence permit, would launch a political message, at a time when the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau wants drastically reduce regularization.
Chaired by Catherine Deneuve, the 50e César ceremony will be held on February 28 at Olympia in Paris.
