2016 César Awards - Short Films Selection

Today the French Academy (Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma) continue with the announcements in the road to #César2016, this time with the twelve (12) short films that made it to the selection.

These are the films in the selection

La contre-allée (Back Alley), Cécile Ducrocq, 30'
Le Dernier des Céfrans (The Last of the Frenchmen), Pierre-Emmanuel Urcun, 30'
Essaie de Mourir Jeune (Try to Die Young), Morgan Simon, 20'
Guy Moquet, Demis Herenger, 29'
Mon Héros, Sylvain Desclous, 30'
Mur (The Wall), Andra Tévy, 18'
Notre Dame des Hormones, Bertrand Mandico, 30'
Ses Souffles (Breathe), Just Philippot,24'
Stella Maris, Giacomo Abbruzzese, 27'
La Terre Penche (Turning Tides), Christelle Lheureux, 53'
Territoire, Vincent Paronnaud, 23'
Totems, Sarah Arnold, 29'

Besides the online screening and a special cinema screening on December 12, 2015, the twelve films will also be available to Academy voters on a "Coffret DVD César 2016". The first voting stage will take place from January 4 to 26, 2016 and the five nominees will be selected. All César Awards nominations will be announced via a press conference on Wednesday, January 27, 2016.

Check available info, film still and/or trailer for short films in the selection.

La Contre-allée (Back Alley) by Cecile Ducrocq
Synopsis: Suzanne has been a prostitute for 15 years. She has her turf, her regular johns, her freedom. One day, young African prostitutes settle nearby. Suzanne is threatened.



Le Dernier des Céfrans (The Last of the Frenchmen) by Pierre-Emmanuel Urcun
Synopsis: Remi is struggling to get by and has had enough. That's it: he's going to enlist. The problem is that he hasn't the courage to tell his four best friends.



Essaie de Mourir Jeune (Try to Die Young), Morgan Simon
Synopsis: It's birthday time. Drifting through the dark night, Vincent and Hervé are looking for something to do. You only turn 25 once.



Guy Moquet by Demis Herenger
Synopsis: Guy Moquet or Guimo or Guim’s promissed Ticky to kiss her at dusk in front of everybody, right in the middle of the neighborhood. Maybe not that crazy… but surely not that simple.



Mon Héros (My Hero) by Sylvain Desclous
Synopsis: Rémi escorts hypothetical Chinese investors. Yan distributes leaflets disguised as chicken. It is, thus, logical that they meet. But for them, it is so unexpected.

Full short at TV5MondePlus here.



Mur (The Wall) by Andra Tévy
Synopsis: One winter evening, on a snowy weather, a woman is going to her job. The surroundings are hostile, the labour backbreaking. And a window doesn’t close anymore: it snows inside the work space. The chore place becomes a land of adventures.



Notre Dame des Hormones, by Bertrand Mandico
Synopsis: Two actresses are rehearsing a play over a weekend in a country house. While walking in the woods, one unearths a strange thing, a creature without cavity, nor members, the size of a seal. The creatures becomes an object of desire for both women, desperate to own the thing. But what they don't know is that they just found 'Our lady of hormones'.



Ses Souffles (Breathe) by Just Philippot
Synopsis: Lizon has just attended her friend Marie's birthday. The friends around the birthday cake, the candles to be blown, the wish to be made amazed her. For her ninth birthday, Lizon wants to have the same thing. A birthday with a cake, candles and her friends, at her home: in the car.



Stella Maris by Giacomo Abbruzzese
Synopsis: A lost Italian village around the Mediterranean Sea. The annual fair. All the locals gather on the beach waiting for the arrival by sea of a traditional illuminated statue, the Stella Maris. The story of a craftsman and his daughter, a blind mayor, fireworks fusing like weapons and street-art as a revolution.



La Terre Penche (Turning Tides) by Christelle Lheureux
Synopsis: A seaside resort, off-season. Thomas comes back, after a long absence. Adèle is a real estate agent, she often falls asleep. The earth then tilts towards the beach and the dunes, to meet jellyfish, sheep and ghosts. The earth tilts, like Thomas and Adèle towards each other.



Territoire by Vincent Paronnaud
Synopsis: 1957, Ossau Valley, Pyrenees, France. Pierre reaches the summer pasture with his dog and his flock of ewes. He is afraid of the wolf but he isn't aware of a fainter and more savage threat: a paratroopers' squad on whom the army is carrying out secret tests.



Totems by Sarah Arnold
Synopsis: After completing her PHD thesis on The Unknown Soldier, Adele returns to her rural hometown to look after her grandfather. Like a modern-day Antigone, her grandfather is a rebellious writer who has secretly kept the remains of a soldier from World War I buried at the bottom of their garden.