France enters the awards frenzy

Awards heat for François Ozon’s The Stranger with Benjamin Voison and Rebecca Marder Photo: UniFrance/Carole Bethuel

As the pre-awards season hots up the French film industry is about to enter the fray with the unveiling of contenders for the Lumière awards, bestowed by the foreign press living and working in France and often dubbed the Golden Globes à la française.

Close eyes will be kept on the ceremony on Sunday (18 January) as a precursor to the French Oscars, the Césars, whose nominees will be announced later on 28 January to be followed by the glitzy ceremony itself in its 51st edition at the Olympia Music Hall on 27 February presided over by Call My Agent’s Camille Cottin and actor Bernard Lavernhe officiating.

Heading up the contenders for the Lumière awards whose ceremony will take place at the Institut du monde arabe on the Left Bank with a rooftop terrace according breathtaking views over the city, are two monochrome titles François Ozon’s much admired Albert Camus adaptation The Stranger starring Benjamin Voison and Richard Linklater’s hugely enjoyable Nouvelle Vague, a riff around the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s pioneering classic Breathless.

Honour for director Cédric Klapisch at the 28th Rendez-vous d’Unifrance in Paris Photo: UniFrance

The Stranger has nods including best film, best director for Ozon, best screenplay, best cinematography, and best actor for Voison. Meanwhile Nouvelle Vague scores five nominations among them best film, best director, best screenplay and a promising newcomer nod for young actor Guillaume Marbeck who plays Godard.

Hot on their heels comes Dominik Molls police thriller, Case 137 with four nominations (best film, best director, best actress (the remarkable Léa Drucker) and best screenplay (for Moll and his co-writer Gilles Marchand).

Stéphane Demoustier’s The Great Arch also ramped up a quartet of nods as best film, director, screenplay, and best actor for Claes Bang who stars as the Danish architect charged with constructing the Great Arch of La Defense in the early 1980s and all the political machinations that ensued.

Another best actress nomination has been bestowed on Jodie Foster for her role in Rebecca Zlotwoski’s A Private Life playing in French a renowned psychiatrist investigating the death of one of her patients.

In the best international co-production category are several Oscar contenders, embracing Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent, Albert Serra’s Afternoons Of Solitude, Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just An Accident, Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value and Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice Of Hind Rajab.

With a lack-lustre performance by Gallic cinema at the domestic box office during the year (down by 13.6 per cent to 156.8 million admissions) the French flurry comes as the 28th Rendez-vous d'Unifrance à Paris takes place from tonight (13 January) until 20 January with 400 film buyers (from 40 countries) and 43 feature film export companies attending. On the audiovisual front, more than 100 buyers (from 24 countries) and 50 distribution companies will also be present.

A press junket as part of the Rendez-vous will welcome nearly 120 foreign journalists (from around 30 countries) and as many French directors and acting talent, who will meet for interviews to accompany the release of around 83 French films during the year.

The opening night film this evening (13 January) is La Comédie-Française by Bertrand Usclat and Martin Darondeau,a behind the scenes foray into a fraught theatrical production where everything seems to go wrong with only three hours to go before curtain-up. The cast includes: Pauline Clément, Laurent Stocker, Julien Frison.

Theatrical frolic La Comédie-Française with Pauline Cléments is the opening film at the 28th Rendez-vous d’Unifrance in Paris Photo: UniFrance

During the Rendez-vous director Cédric Klapisch will be honoured with a French Cinema Award in recognition of the international attention given to his films such as When The Cat’s Away; Pot Luck and the other titles in the trilogy Russian Dolls and Chinese Puzzle; Back To Burgundy; Someone, Somewhere; Rise and most recently Colours of Time.

Richard Mowe is a member of L’Academie des Lumières.

Lumiere Nominations

Best Film

• Case 137, dir. Dominik Moll
• The Stranger, dir. François Ozon
• The Great Arch, dir. Stéphane Demoustier
• Mektoub My Love: Canto Due, dir. Abdellatif Kechiche
• Nouvelle Vague, dir. Richard Linklater

Best Director

• Stéphane Demoustier for The Great Arch
• Abdellatif Kechiche for Mektoub My Love: Canto Due
• Richard Linklater for Nouvelle Vague
• Dominik Moll for Case 137
• François Ozon for The Stranger

Best Screenplay

• Stéphane Demoustier for The Great Arch
• Holly Gent, Vince Palmo & Michèle Halberstadt for Nouvelle Vague
• Pauline Loquès for Nino
• Dominik Moll & Gilles Marchand for Case 137
• François Ozon for The Stranger

Best Documentary

• Whispers In The Woods, dir. Vincent Munier
• Tell Her I Love Her, dir. Romane Bohringer
• Lumière! The Adventure Continues, dir. Thierry Frémaux
• Sarkozy-Gaddafi: The Scandal Of All Scandals, dir. Yannick Kergoat
• Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, dir. Sepideh Farsi

Best Animation

• Little Amelie Or The Character Of Rain, dir. Liane-Cho Han & Maïlys Vallade
• Arco, dir. Ugo Bienvenu
• La Vie De Chateau: Mon Enfance A Versailles, dir. Nathaniel H’Limi & Clémence Madeleine-Perdrillat
• A Magnificent Life, dir. Sylvain Chomet
• A Boat In The Garden, dir. Jean-François Laguionie

Best Actress

• Léa Drucker for Case 137
• Jodie Foster for A Private Life
• Isabelle Huppert for The Richest Woman in the World
• Vicky Krieps for Love Me Tender
• Mélanie Thierry for Mariana’s Room

Best Actor

• Swann Arlaud for The Condition
• Claes Bang for The Great Arch
• Laurent Lafitte for The Richest Woman in the World
• Alexis Manenti for The Mohican
• Benjamin Voisin for The Stranger

Most Promising Actress

• Manon Clavel for Kika
• Bella Kim for Winter in Sokcho
• Nadia Melliti for The Little Sister
• Jessica Pennington for Mektoub My Love: Canto Due
• Anja Verderosa for L’Epreuve Du Feu

Most Promising Actor

• Idir Azougli for Meteors
• Younès Boucif for Spices And Lies
• Guillaume Marbeck for Nouvelle Vague
• Théodore Pellerin for Nino
• Eloy Pohu for Enzo

Best First Film

• The Girl In The Snow, dir. Louise Hémon
• Little Jaffna, dir. Lawrence Valin
• Nino, dir. Pauline Loquès
• Block Pass, dir. Antoine Chevrollier
• That Summer In Paris, dir. Valentine Cadic

Best International Co-production

• The Secret Agent, dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho
• Afternoons Of Solitude, dir. Albert Serra
• It Was Just An Accident, dir. Jafar Panahi
• Sentimental Value, dir. Joachim Trier
• The Voice Of Hind Rajab, dir. Kaouther Ben Hania

Best Cinematography

• Marine Atlan for The Girl In The Snow
• David Chambille for Nouvelle Vague
• Manu Dacosse for The Stranger
• Pascal Lagriffoul for The Condition
• Vincent Munier, Antoine Lavorel & Laurent Joffrion for Whispers In The Woods

Best Score

• Fatima Al Qadiri for The Stranger
• Amine Bouhafa for The Little Sister
• Warren Ellis, Dom La Nena & Rosemary Standley for Whispers In The Woods
• ROB for A Private Life
• Arnaud Toulon for Arco