The two films at the top of the nominations for the César 2023 ceremony, which will be held on February 24, are "The Innocent", by Louis Garrel, and "The Night of 12", by Dominik Moll.  

Presented at Cannes where it won over the critics, before bringing together more than 700,000 spectators in theaters, "The Innocent" mixes comedy and heist film, drawing inspiration from the family history of Louis Garrel.

The film is in the lead for the César evening, with 11 nominations, including best film and best actor for Louis Garrel, and is the favorite to succeed "Illusions Perdues", last year's winner with seven trophies.

The child of the ball, who has become a star of French auteur cinema, rubs shoulders in the best actor category with his elders Jean Dujardin, for "November" on the attacks of 2015, but also Benoît Magimel, for "Peace" of 'Albert Serra, in the running for a double after his César last year.

On the actress side, Virginie Efira, nominated for "Revoir Paris" where she also shares the poster with him, witnessing an attack in a Parisian brasserie, has every chance, notably in the face of Adèle Exarchopoulos ("Nothing to fuck ") or Laure Calamy ("Full time").

"La Nuit du 12", with 10 nominations including the best film and the best direction too, as well as the best male hope, for Bastien Bouillon in a police role, is also very well placed.

A prize would allow its director, Dominik Moll, to return to the front of the stage 22 years after his César for best director for "Harry, a friend who wants you well", and would celebrate a fiction on a very contemporary question, the machismo and violence against women.

Among the other feature films in the running for the best film, "En Corps", by Cédric Klapisch, the story of a classical dancer who is rebuilding after an injury, interpreted by Marion Barbot, selected for the best female hope. 

The Césars, regularly pointed out for their inter-self, will not necessarily silence these critics this year: "En Corps" is the only film among the favorites to have gathered more than one million spectators (1.3 million).

"November" and "Simone, Le Voyage du Siècle", more popular with more than 2 million admissions, had to settle for seven and two nominations each.

Evening chaired by Tahar Rahim

Unless there is a last-minute revelation, the Academy should on the other hand save itself a new crisis on the attitude to adopt in the face of artists suspected or involved in cases of sexual or gender-based violence.

Gérard Depardieu or Ary Abittan, presumed innocent by the courts but indicted for rapes which they deny, are not named, any more than Sofiane Bennacer.

His case was the most radioactive, since his revelation in "Les Amandiers", the film by his companion Valéria Bruni-Tadeschi.

The release of the film was accompanied by revelations about his indictments for rape, and the director admitted to being aware of it during filming.

Sofiane Bennacer is ultimately not named among the male hopefuls, and the Caesars should therefore not need to draw the rule adopted at the last minute, according to which no person implicated "by justice for acts of violence" will not be "highlighted". 

The feature film, retracing the adventure of Patrice Chéreau's Amandiers theater, still garners seven nominations, including best film.

After this first round, in which 67% of the 4,705 members of the Academy participated, French cinema will return to the polls to award the prizes, which will be awarded during an evening chaired by Tahar Rahim on the Olympia stage. .

The presentation will be ensured collectively by nine masters and mistresses of ceremonies, from Emmanuelle Devos to Eye Haïdara, via Alex Lutz and Ahmed Sylla, with the heavy task of raising audiences which were still catastrophic last year (1.3 million viewers).

With AFP

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