Cinema: the Louis-Delluc Prize awarded to "Pacitation" and "Saint-Omer"

The Louis-Delluc Prize was awarded ex-aequo to “Paiction” by Albert Serra and “Saint-Omer” by Alice Diop.

© Les Films du Solange / SRAB FILMS

Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow

2 mins

The Louis-Delluc prize is awarded each year to the best French film of the year.

For this, he is also considered the "Goncourt of cinema". 

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This prestigious prize has been awarded since 1936 (Jean Renoir opened the ball with

) and named in tribute to the filmmaker Louis Delluc.

Director and theoretician of a “French-style” cinema, who died in 1924, at the age of 33, Delluc has since been honored as an “ 

 ”.

For 2022, the heirs are

, French documentary filmmaker, 43, born in Aulnay-sous-Bois, and

, Catalan director, 47, born in Banyoles.

The latter baffled more than one spectator with his almost three-hour surreal thriller.

, shot in perfect symbiosis with Benoît Magimel who plays the High Commissioner of the Republic in Tahiti, tells of a growing psychosis concerning the threat of a resumption of nuclear tests by the French army in French Polynesia.

Any action, but also any inaction, then gives rise to rumors and suspicions against a backdrop of very real corruption.

With

, Alice Diop obviously hit the nail on the head.

After her Silver Lion and her first film prize at the Venice Film Festival, her triumphant reception by critics, and her selection to represent France at the 2023 Oscars, the director was awarded the Louis-Delluc prize.

Her first fiction, co-written with the novelist Marie Ndiaye, is inspired by a sordid news item, recounting the trial for infanticide of a young Senegalese immigrant accused of having abandoned her 15-month-old baby on a Normandy beach and thus provoked the death of his daughter.

Through her main character, Diop questions both the weight of motherhood and the place of a black woman in French society.

The Louis-Delluc Prize for Best First Film 2022 was awarded to Charlotte Le Bon for

, which will be released on December 7 in theaters in France.

In her first stint behind the camera for a feature film, the Quebec actress, who was also a model and weather forecaster on Canal+, recounts the adventures of two teenagers on the edge of a lake haunted by a spirit.

A daring work that would have pleased Louis Delluc.

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