50th César Award Winners

Last night the Academy had their awards ceremony and Emilia Pérez was the big winner by winning 7 awards out of 12 nominations; following far away are Souleymane's Story with 4 wins and The Count of Monte Cristo with 2 awards.

Of course I'm extremely pleased with top winner as is a film by one of my most respected filmmakers, Jacques Audiard, who has done films like the world cinema outstanding The Prophet and yes, I believe Emilia Pérez is as good as The Prophet and do recognize that Emilia Pérez could change the way films are made as film outdoor scenes are successfully done in Paris, France -not in Mexico- and you can successfully mix different genres -including musical- when director is a true master filmmaker.

I'm very disappointed with American (the continent that includes USA) reactions to film and the posterior social media scandal that became one actress carnage that spilled furiously into the movie and end up punishing the film. When first saw the movie noticed spoken language in film was not Mexican (please notice I do not call the language the generic Spanish name) at all and I thought that was done on purpose to show the people-that-speak-Spanish melting pot as there is a Spaniard, a Dominican, and a Venezuelan speaking mainly with their own accents and an American speaking like most "gringos" speak Spanish. So when scandal exploded, and started with language, could not understand all the fuzz.

Then scandal galloped into film story and things started to get out of hand thanks to media coverage from USA and Mexico, a coverage that fast enough became worldwide. With all the worldwide buzz and fuzz entertainment journalists dug deeper to find more, then one female journalist found the tweets and social media went demented. What followed is so disgusting that wont spend time talking about what we all know.

So, there is no surprise that most USA cinema industry online outlets when covering the Cesar Awards, more than 80% of what they wrote was about the "scandal" and not about the movies and actors that were honored during the award 50th anniversary. Of course a very different picture was painted in French articles as unfortunately Spanish articles couldn't avoid the trap of trashing the movie via one of its main actresses.

I'm hoping everything will be over by Sunday night and can't deny I lost huge amounts of interest in watching the Oscars show but well, no matter how incredibly stupid some people in the industry, some journalists and almost all social media can be, I still believe in cinema and just hope incidents like this one doesn't happen again to any movie, specially great movies made by master filmmakers. Sigh.

The Winners

Best Film: Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard, France

Best Debut Film: Vingt dieux (Holy Cow), Louise Courvosier, France
Best Documentary Film: La Ferme des Bertrand, Gilles Perret, France
Best Animated Feature: Straume (Flow), Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia, France and Belgium
Best Foreign Film: The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer, UK, Poland and USA

Best Director: Jaques Audiard for Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard, France

Best Actress:  Hafsia Herzi in Borgo, Stéphane Demoustier, France
Best Supporting Actress: Nina Meurisse in L'Histoire de Souleymane (Souleymane's Story), Boris Lojkine, France
Most Promising Actress: Maïwène Barthélemy in Vingt dieux (Holy Cow), Louise Courvoisier, France
Best Actor: Karim Leklou in Le Romain de Jim (Jim's Story),  Arnaud Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu, France
Best Supporting Actor: Alain Chabat in L'Amour Ouf (Beating Hearts), Gilles Lellouche, France
Most Promising Actor: Abou Sangaré in L'Histoire de Souleymane (Souleymane's Story), Boris Lojkine, France

Best Original Screenplay: Boris Lojkine and Delphine Agut for L'Histoire de Souleymane (Souleymane's Story), Boris Lojkine, France
Best Adaptation:  Jacques Audiard for Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard, France

Best Cinematography: Paul Guilhaume for Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard, France
Best Visual Effects: Cédric Fayolle for Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard, France
Best Editing: Xavier Sirven for L'Histoire de Souleymane (Souleymane's Story), Boris Lojkine, France
Best Production Design: Stéphane Taillasson for Le Comte de Monte Cristo (The Count of Monte Cristo), Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre De La Patellière, France
Best Costume: Thierry Delettre for Le Comte de Monte Cristo (The Count of Monte Cristo), Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre De La Patellière, France

Best Original Score: Clément Ducol and Camille for Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard, France
Best Sound: Erwan Kerzanet, Aymeric Devoldère, Cyril Holtz, and Niels Barletta for Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard, France

Best Fiction Short Film: Covjek koji nije mogao sutjeti (The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent), Nebojša Slijepčević, Croatia, France, Bulgary and Slovenia
Best Animated Short Film: Beurk! (Yuck!), Loïc Espuche,  France
Best Documentary Short Film: Las Novias del Sur (Southern Brides), Elena Lopez Riera, Spain, Switzerland and France

Honorary César
Costa Gavras
Julia Roberts

Awards are not yet at official site but eventually will be here, available only in French.