Audiard’s Cannes Fest Winner Represents France in Oscars International Feature Race
France’s revamped Oscar committee selected Jacques Audiard’s exhilarating musical thriller Emilia Perez for the international feature film Oscar race.
The movie, which won two major awards at the 2024 Cannes Film Fest, earned rave reviews.
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“Emilia Perez” stars Karla Sofía Gascón as a fearsome drug lord who embraces her true self as a woman. The Spanish-language film earned one of Cannes’s longest standing ovations and went on to win the Jury Prize (in a jury presided over by Greta Gerwig), on top of a Best Actress Prize for the ensemble cast, including Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz. The movie was bought by Netflix for the U.S. and the U.K. following its Cannes premiere.
Audiard won a Palme d’Or with “Dheepan,” and was previously nominated for a foreign-language Oscar with “A Prophet” starring Tahar Rahim.
The selection was done in two rounds by a new Oscar committee which was presided over by Charles Tesson, the former artistic director of Cannes’ Critics Week, and included “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.
As part of the process, producers, sales agents and U.S. distributors of all three shortlisted films were auditioned today (Sept. 18) by the committee. The latter was expanded from 7 to 11 members and five alternates earlier this year after the backlash over the snub of Anatomy of a Fall.
Unlike in previous years, members of the committee will stay in place for a duration of two years.
While “All We Imagine as Light” wasn’t chosen to represent France, the movie’s Indian’s co-producers have also submitted for consideration to the Oscar committee in India.
Emilia Perez will be pushed by Netflix in most major categories at the Oscars (including director, film and actress) beyond the international feature one.
Audiard’s movie just had buzzy American premieres at Telluride and Toronto Fests.
It will next open the American French Film Fest in Los Angeles, as part of a red-carpet event presented in association with Netflix on October 29.
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