Deauville American Film Festival Awards

Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio's novel “In Summer” won the top prizes at this year's 50th Awards.^D Deauville Edition of the Deauville American Film Festival, where he received the Grand Prize and the Louis Roder Foundation's Revelation Prize, awarded by a parallel jury.

Intimate and expansive, the film traces a Latin American family’s story, using four short scenes spanning two decades, as it traces the evolving and challenging relationship two brothers share with their father, played by the great Puerto Rican rapper Residente. “In the Summer” previously won the Grand Jury Prize and the Director’s Prize at Sundance and is set to be released by Music Box Films next week.

“I have always been a huge fan of French cinema, so it was truly an honor to have my film screened at the Deauville American Film Festival,” says the director. diverse“It was unbelievable to win; [I’m] “I am very grateful. I hope this will allow a larger international audience to see the film.”

The Jury Prize at Deauville went to Nnamdi Asomugha’s feature debut, “The Knife.” After a stellar career in the NFL, the actor-turned-player continues his rise as an award-winning filmmaker with a tense, claustrophobic drama about a family man—played by Asomugha himself—who is the victim of a home invasion and then plunged into a biased justice system. The film previously won directing and cinematography awards at Tribeca last June.

Morale was high in these fifties.^D While Deauville festival-goers celebrated Brandt Andersen’s “The Strangers’ Case” with the Audience Award, the Press Jury awarded David Fortune’s “Color Book” with the Critics’ Award. To celebrate this historic event, the festival also presented two special awards, the 50th Anniversary Barrière Award to Alonso Ruizpalacios’ “La Cocina” and the Canal+ 50th Anniversary Award to Todd Wiseman Jr.’s “The School Duel.”

At the closing ceremony of the awards, Mareike Engelhardt's film “Rabia” won the “D'Ornano Valenti” prize – an award given to the first French feature film and voted on by representatives of the English-language press.

The festival concluded its closing ceremony with a record-breaking edition that saw attendance numbers reach new highs while welcoming guests and honorees such as Francis Ford Coppola, Sean Baker, Michael Douglas, Michelle Williams, James Gray, Daisy Ridley and Sebastian Stan.

At some point, the film festival became a film festival. hiring As director Joachim Trier used the red carpet in Deauville to film scenes for his upcoming project “Sentimental Value,” the mix of international glamour reached its peak at Saturday’s closing ceremony, where Isabelle Adjani paid an emotional tribute to Natalie Portman.

But smooth sailing hasn’t always been guaranteed. In June, coach Bruno Bardi was suspended after being accused of sexual misconduct, while new manager Aude Haysbert took over after having to deal with the turmoil surrounding an already-announced jury member who had previously admitted to inappropriate behavior toward a minor before all charges against him were dropped.

Two weeks before the festival was due to open—and four days before her term as Deauville Festival director officially began—Hisbert chose to formally uninvite the controversial juror, prompting a media backlash and ongoing litigation. But the new artistic director stands by her opening decision.

“Nobody wanted to revolutionize the festival from the moment they first arrived,” says Hesbert. “But we were in a very specific context. The festival was on the verge of collapse, and the team was still in shock because of the departure of my predecessor, who had not behaved in an ideal way. I did not want to send mixed messages, and I was not comfortable with this invitation either, so together we made a very difficult but absolutely necessary decision to give everyone a fresh start.”

While the French film industry is still reeling from its own reckoning with the #MeToo movement, Haysbert wants her festival to serve as a meeting point for the American and French sectors.

“We need to come together to think about what is acceptable, what is not, and what we want for the future of the profession,” she says. “Deauville should be a platform for exchange on these topics, a place for dialogue between the two industries so that we can share best practices. Many Americans are very impressed by the artistic freedom that exists in French cinema, while we can learn a lot from American pragmatism and the mechanisms put in place to confront past excesses.”

“The long tradition of power imbalance is not limited to the film industry,” Haysbert adds. “It’s the same with any kind of team management, so we need to invent new ways to organize and manage culture. And we’re going to be demanding these ways for a long time to come, because we can’t solve these deep social issues in an instant.”

Haysbert is looking forward to her first full edition at the helm of the festival, as she wants to develop the Deauville Festival's footprint in the American film industry and enhance the festival's influence in the Oscar race.

Referring to this year’s Palme d’Or winner, Haysbert notes that Sean Baker has been on the Normandy coast longer than he has been on the Croisette, and that Baker’s 2015 Jury Prize for “Tangerine” helped introduce the highly acclaimed director to France. At least in the domestic market, the festival also served as a launching pad for Charlotte Wells’s “Aftersun,” which won the festival’s top prize in 2022 after a quieter launch at Cannes.

These two themes intertwined this year when Deauville offered “Anora” star Mikey Madison the Hollywood Rising Star Award, putting the young nominee in the spotlight before a packed audience of Academy voters. Indeed, with the Academy’s international reach—and Deauville continuing to attract a significant amount of European attention and presence—Hisbert believes her festival should play a proportionate role as a showcase for the season’s most promising films.

She also wants to help emerging directors find a more secure footing.

“I’m often told that it’s easier to make a first film in France,” she says. “We need to make American filmmakers aware of the many ways they can work with us. [France’s National Film Board’s] “The World Cinema Fund has opened up to American cinema in recent years, while international productions can always come here to take advantage of our tax breaks. And when it comes to independent productions, we can do a lot together.”