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| Net result for Carloto Cotta in Critics’ Week top award-winner Diamantino Photo: La Semaine de la Critique |
In the first of a plethora of awards due at the Cannes Film Festival before the final Official prizes’ ceremony on Saturday, the Critics’ Week jury, headed by director Joachim Trier, last night announced the Franco-Brazilian-Portuguese comedy drama Diamantino has taken the top honours.
Directed by first-time filmmakers Gabriel Anbrantes and Daniel Schmidt, the film tells of the fall from grace of a top football player (played by Carloto Cotta with more than a nod to Ronaldo).
Trade magazine Variety described it as “deranged satire … sure to remain the freshest blast of gonzo comic energy at this year’s Cannes Film Festival."
The other jury members comprised American actress Chloe Sevigny, Argentinian actor Nahuel Perez Biscayart, new Vienna film festival director Eva Sangiorgi and French cultural journalist Augustin Trapenard.
The French writers’ guild SACD prize was awarded to Benedikt Erlingsson’s Icelandic environmental drama Woman at War, which relates how an activist takes on the aluminium industry.
Félix Maritaud, a French actor, won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award for his role as a gay hustler in Sauvage by Camille Vidal-Naquet.
The Critics’ Week sidebar also put the focus on short films with Jacqueline Lentzou's Hector Malot: The Last Day of the Year taking the Leica Cine Discovery Prize and Elias Belkeddar's gangster drama A Wedding Day winning the CanalPlus Award.
