“Le Sixieme Enfant”, the first film by French director Leopold Legrand, garnered the highest number of awards. Francophone Film Festival in Angoulême (Central Western France), which was distributed on Sunday, while the “Blue Kaftan” by Moroccan Maryam Touzani also emerged.
“The Sixth Boy”, which delves into the deep desire of motherhood, won four awards, including one for best screenplay and the other for best actress, which was equally won by Sarah Gerudo and Judith Shimla, according to the list announced Sunday evening at the conclusion of a session marked by works dealing with societal issues.
The film, adapted by Leopold Legrand and Catherine Payet on a novel by Alain Gaspard, also won the Valois Music Prize (given to Louie Sclaves) and the Audience Award.
The second most winning film out of the ten works that were included in the competition (including seven directed by women), is “The Kaftan Blue” byMary Touzani.
This film won the Valois Award for Directing, in addition to the award for Best Actor, which went to Palestinian Saleh Bakri. In the film, Bakri played the character of Halim, who, during his life with his wife Mina (Lubna Azbal), hid the secret of his homosexuality, but the employment of an assistant for Halim in his shop to sew the traditional kaftan changed this reality.
Canadian Genevieve Albert won the Valois Prize for Francophone Students for her first feature film Noemie Dit Oui, which deals with the phenomenon of teenage prostitution in Canada. Actress Kelly Debos received a special mention.
The René Lalo Prize for Best Animated Short Film was awarded to “Les Larmes De La Seine”, directed by eight students and dealing with the massacre of Algerian demonstrators on the night of October 17, 1961 at the hands of the police in Paris.
The audience turned out to be the 15th edition of the Angoulême Film Festival, as the number of film screenings reached 52,000, according to official figures, regarding 15,000 more than in 2021.
(AFP)
