The Animal Kingdom by Thomas Cailley was awarded the 2023 Louis-Delluc Prize, Sophie Avon, co-president of the prize awarded by a jury of critics, announced on Wednesday. Last year, the films Saint-Omer by Alice Diop and Pacifiction by Albert Serra were named joint winners. The 2023 Louis-Delluc Prize for First Film went to Iris Kaltenbäck’s first feature film, Le Rapissement, with Hafsia Herzi, in the role of a midwife who becomes insanely attached to her best friend’s newborn. friend.
Also read Our review of Animal Kingdom: beast of cinema
Highly noticed at Cannes, where it opened the “Un Certain Regard” selection, The Animal Kingdom, which has crossed the million admissions mark since its release, imagines a world where some of humans have begun to mutate towards an animal form, from octopus to wolf.
“It is an enormous pleasure to receive this award and to see the film seen and loved so much. This rewards a very large collective adventure,” said Thomas Cailley, alongside actor Romain Duris, who plays in the film. For critic Sophie Avon, co-president of the Louis-Delluc prize, Le Règne animal was rewarded “for its artistic ambition”. “With this genre film, Thomas Cailley dares to do things, which is quite rare in French cinema. The film is extraordinary in its form and in the heart of the most poignant film,” Sophie Avon underlined to AFP.
For the Delluc 2023, were also in the running Anatomy of a Fall, Palme d’Or 2023 by Justine Triet, Little Girl Blue by Mona Achache, with Marion Cotillard, The Goldman Trial by Cédric Kahn and Last Summer by Catherine Breillat . On the occasion of the awards, a tribute was paid on Wednesday to the critic and film historian Michel Ciment, great voice of Masque et la Plume, the oldest broadcaster on France Inter, who died in November.
Made up of around twenty critics and personalities, under the presidency of Gilles Jacob, the former president of the Cannes Festival, the Louis-Delluc prize was founded in 1937 in homage to Louis Delluc, the first French journalist specializing in cinema and founder of film clubs, died at the age of 33.
