Deauville (AFP)

The Deauville American Film Festival on Saturday awarded several prizes for "The Nest" by Sean Durkin, an "oppressive thriller", with Jude Law, at the end of a 46th edition where the public, masked, responded despite the Covid-19.

The president of the main jury of the competition Vanessa Paradis praised "an oppressive thriller, a fable about the disintegration of a family carried by an elegance of its staging and two exceptional actors", Carrie Coon ("The Leftovers" , "Gone girl" by David Fincher) and Jude Law.

The film received both the Grand Jury Prize, the Jury Prize for Revelation tied with, for the directing, "The Assistant" (Kitty Green's first film, on harassment at work) and the Prize of criticism.

This is the second film by Canadian Sean Durkin, who won the 2011 Sundance Best Director Award for "Martha Marcy May Marlene".

In "The Nest", Rory, a former broker turned ambitious entrepreneur, convinces Allison, his wife, and their two children to leave the comforts of an affluent suburb of the United States to settle in England. , his country of birth.

Persuaded to make a fortune there, Rory rents an old mansion in the countryside where his wife can continue to ride.

But the hope of a lucrative new start quickly fades and isolation gradually cracks the family balance.

The Jury Prize chaired by Vanessa Paradis goes ex-æquo to "First Cow", a rereading of the western centered on the friendship between two men signed Kelly Reichardt, figure of independent American cinema (film also selected in Berlin in February), and to "Lorelei", the first film by Briton Sabrina Doyle.

"Women in the movies are either whores or perfect mothers. I wanted to show a woman who is not perfect, who has her own dreams. I wanted to show that it is possible to be a non-traditional man, a new one. type of man, a new type of woman, "Sabrina Doyle said in Deauville on Wednesday.

Fifteen films were in competition, eight of which were signed by women.

- 38,000 spectators -

The City of Deauville Audience Prize was awarded to "Uncle Frank" by Alan Ball, the American Beauty screenwriter, for whom he won an Oscar in 2000, and creator of the series "Six feet under".

His second film tells the story of an academic from New York who hides his homosexuality from his family and that a death forces him to return to his family.

Jonathan Nossiter's "Last words", with Charlotte Rampling, won no prize despite being selected at both Deauville and Cannes.

Based in Italy, the director of "Mondovino" was one of the only two American directors to have made the trip to Deauville in a context of health crisis.

This 46th edition of the Normandy festival was marked by the presentation of nine of the 52 films selected at Cannes, the 2020 edition of which has been canceled.

Among the films in Cannes that were widely applauded, "A good man" by Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar with Noémie Merlant, "Les Deux Alfred" by Bruno Podalydès with Sandrine Kiberlain, Denis and Bruno Podalydès, "ADN" by Maïwen with Louis Garrel and Fanny Ardant, or "Rouge" by Farid Bentoumi.

In the near absence of Americans, it was French stars who attracted photographers: Benoît Poelvoorde, Maïwen, Pio Marmaï, Bruno Podalydès, Lucas Belvaux, Louis Garrel, Vincent Lacoste, Noémie Merlant, Zita Hanrot, Céline Sallette, Sami Bouajila or Luana Bajrami.

Many actors, directors and spectators underlined their pleasure in finding cinemas that were often full with the festival within the limits of the anti-Covid gauges.

The capacity of the main festival hall has been reduced from 1,500 to 1,000 seats.

The organizers of the festival, which started on September 5 and ends Sunday, announced Saturday 38,000 spectators against 60,000 in previous years.

© 2020 AFP