France’s Oscars committee has shortlisted four movies, including Jacques Audiard’s redemption thriller “Emilia Perez” and “The Count of Monte Cristo,” an epic adventure film adapted from Alexandre Dumas’ classic, as well as Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light” and Alain Guiraudie’s “Misericordia.”
All four movies word premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. “Emilia Perez” won two major awards, the Jury Prize and a best actress nod for its ensemble female cast, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana and Adriana Paz; while “All We Imagine as Light” won the Grand Prize, becoming the first Indian film in 30 years to win the award. Kapadia was also the first Indian female director to compete at Cannes. “Misericordia” played at Cannes Premiere and recently screened at Telluride and Toronto, while “The Count of Monte Cristo,” directed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière, unspooled of competition at Cannes.
The country’s revamped and expanded Oscar committee, presided over by Charles Tesson, the former artistic director of Cannes’ Critics Week, includes “Emmanuelle” director Audrey Diwan who won Venice’s Golden Lion with “Happening” in 2021; critically acclaimed French playwright, director and producer Florian Zeller (“The Father”); former Lionsgate boss Patrick Wachsberger; international sales veterans Carole Baraton from Charades, and Gregoire Melin from Kinology; powerful French distributor Michèle Halberstadt from ARP Selection; producers Rosalie Varda (“Faces Places”) from Ciné-Tamaris, Nadim Cheikhroua (“Olfa’s Daughters”) and David Thion (“Anatomy of a Fall”) at Les Films Pelléas; and actor Clemence Poesy.
The final vote for the French Oscar submission will take place on Sept. 11 after auditions with each of the four shortlisted films’s producers, international sales agents and U.S. distributors. The movie that will be chosen will represent the country in the international feature film race. Netflix has “Emilia Perez,” Samuel Goldwyn Films has “The Count of Monte Cristo,” and Janus/Sideshow have “All We Imagine as Light” and “Misericordia.”
Under the guidelines, all the films shortlisted will have been released theatrically in France for at least seven days between before Sept. 30.
“The Count of Monte Cristo” smashed the French box office and has so far sold over 8 million tickets since being released in late June. “Emilia Perez” is currently playing in theaters in France and just had a critically acclaimed North American premiere at Toronto.
France hasn’t won an Oscar for best international feature in over three decades.
More to come.
Source Agencies
