Entry to the French Oscars 2021 among the annual winners of the foreign press

Films rich in emotion and color grabbed some of the top prizes at the 26th Lumières Foreign Press Awards in Paris on Tuesday night. Adapted to Covid restrictions, the show continued, in a television studio with only the tech crew as spectators. Despite the constraints, artistic talent shines through.

The things we say, the things we do with Camila Jordano and Vincent Macaigne with Emilie Dequenne and Nils Schnieder won the award for best Lumière film. Some like to describe director Emmanuel Mouret as France’s response to Woody Allen.

Far from Manhattan and less satirical, Love (s), in English, is a psychological drama of intrigue between contrasting lovers in town and in the countryside. The attractions play hide and seek with Daphné and Maxime while waiting for Daphne’s partner to show up in his vacation home.

Emilie Dequenne is superb as a generous woman in this five. Mouret’s film has to be one of the most enchanting films to be shot in France in 2020.

Represent France at the Oscars
Three films were twice awarded the Enlightenment Foreign Press Film Award Academy, one of them being the French entry in the category of best foreign film at this year’s American Academy Awards, the Oscars.

The deep and the beautiful Two (both of us) directed by Filippo Meneghetti, of Italian origin, won the award for best 1st Lumières film and the award for best Lumières actress went to the leading role Martine Chevallier.

The two outstanding actresses Martine Chevallier and Barbara Sukowa combined their experience with Meneghetti’s deep understanding of life, love and societal prejudice.

Cartoonist Aurel won the award for best animated film for his Josep about a Spanish refugee fleeing Franco’s Spain in the 1930s to France, where Spanish refugees were thrown into inhumane and mistreated detention camps. Sílvia Pérez Cruz won the award for best Enlightenment music for her lively and romantic score.

Francois Ozon’s Summer 85 (Summer of ’85) won the awards for best photography and new male talent. Hichame Alaouié is the man behind the camera and the Kodak color saturated image that recreates the intoxicating atmosphere of the mid-eighties when two teenagers come of age and fall in love. Félix Lefebvre and Benjamin Voisin are the two young people to watch.

The actress, director, screenwriter Maïwenn won the award for best director for DNA (DNA) about a young woman, played by Maïwenn (also known among others Polished) whose Algerian roots begin to pull harder upon the death of his grandfather.

Stéphane Demoustier has shaped fabulous roles in his thriller The Girl with the Bracelet (The Girl with the Bracelet), including one for his sister Anaïs Desmoustier, as an insightful and direct lawyer for the prosecution. It’s based on the Argentinian film Accused. The pace of this multi-level audience drama is such that it’s hard to miss a nuance and yet, whodunnit?

Life goes on
The best actor 2021 went to Sami Bouajila for the role of his father A son (To Son) directed by Mehdi M. Barsaoui, Best New Female Talent went to Noée Abita for her difficult role as a budding ski champion, the prey of an unbridled and frustrated trainer in Charlène Favier’s very polished first feature film, Slalom.

A country that stands wise (Le monopole de la violence), a documentary by David Dufresne is a hard-hitting social work that won the Lumières documentary award. He gives the floor to many demonstrators and commentators who have experienced or analyzed the recent police violence in France.

Kaouther Ben Hania, a Tunisian filmmaker whose Belle et la Meute (Beauty and the Pack) demonstrates her growing talent and mastery of the art of directing with her The man who sold his skin, won a co-production award.

It is one of the only two films of the final list of the Lumières Academy for 2021 which had to postpone their releases to 2021. The other is Slalom.

The 26th Enlightenment ceremony was dedicated to the General Delegate of the Academy from 2016-2019 and to one of its oldest members, José Maria Riba (1951-2020).

This year’s awards are a testament to the determination of the French film industry and cinemas in France in 2020 to continue creating and continuing despite the impact of the Covid pandemic.