Caesars | Valérie Lemercier named best actress for Aline

(Paris) Valérie Lemercier won the César for best actress on Friday for her portrayal of Celine Dion in the film she dedicated to the star of Quebec song, Aline.

“I had a small model, and even a great model, to whom I once again tell this evening all my love and admiration, Céline of course! “said the 57-year-old actress on the Olympia stage. Before joking hoping to have as much success with his next biographical film… on the former socialist minister Martine Aubry.

Valérie Lemercier had already won the César for best actress in a secondary role in 2001.

Aline recounts with humour, but without ever falling into pastiche, the life of Quebec singer Céline Dion.

Freely inspired by the life of the international star, the film, directed and worn by Valérie Lemercier, tells the story of Aline Dieu, a Quebec singer propelled to the rank of star thanks to her exceptional voice.

More than a biography, this sixth feature film by Valérie Lemercier is actually a declaration of love to the singer.

Gestures, costumes, voices… Nothing is left to chance. Throughout the film, Valérie Lemercier, who achieves the feat of embodying an Aline God at all ages, disappears in the guise of Celine Dion.

A vitality runs through this film, which was shot with an exclusively Quebec cast (Danielle Fichaud, Sylvain Marcel, Antoine Vézina and Pascale Desrochers), at the height of a dazzling Valérie Lemercier.

“There is a lot of second degree but it was never about making fun. That wasn’t the point at all. He is someone I admire a lot, who never bores me. Beautiful at all ages. She “switches” everything, even the sad things, she puts on a show, she is captivating, “said the director during the presentation of the film.

lost illusions wins the César for best film

lost illusionsadaptation of the great novel by Honoré de Balzac by Xavier Giannoli, won the César for best film on Friday.

The feature film, which was a big favorite, won seven statuettes, including that of best film. And is worth a César for best male hope to Benjamin Voisin, 25, who plays the ambitious idealist Lucien de Rubempré, thrown into the deep end of Parisian ambitions.

Young provincial in love with literature, his dreams will be shattered on the reality of society at the time of the Restoration. By rewarding “Lost Illusions”, the Césars, sometimes criticized for their navel-gazing or their disconnection, ensure the triumph of one of the rare post-containment French films to have combined popular success (more than 870,000 admissions) and artistic ambition.

The director, Xavier Giannoli, who succeeds Albert Dupontel crowned last year for Goodbye Cons, did not, like the latter, come to collect his prize. He is “an independent artist”, simply commented his co-screenwriter Jacques Fieschi, interviewed by AFP.

Leos Carax rewarded for the realization of Annette

Leos Carax won the César for best achievement on Friday for his rock opera Annette, with Marion Cotillard and Adam Driver, to music by the Sparks.

The 61-year-old Franco-American director is the first to achieve with this film the double César for best director and Prize for directing at Cannes, where it was screened at the opening of the last festival.

A secret and tormented artist, the filmmaker did not come to collect his prize.

His career has only six feature films, and he has oscillated between the status of genius and that of shadow, passing through the financial abyss and the professional damnation of Lovers of the Pont-Neuf.

Almost a decade after the hallucinatory ballad of Holy Motorshe came back with Annettea dreamlike tale carried by Marion Cotillard (an internationally renowned singer) and Adam Driver (a stand-up comedian), two passionate lovers who will become parents of a mysterious little girl.

The film, distributed by Amazon and first presented at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, was made on an idea by the American duo Sparks, figures of alternative music since the 1970s.

After his thundering debut with Boy meets Girls in 1984, then Bad blood two years later, this still youthful-looking Jean-de-la-Lune had trouble getting rid of the Lovers of the Pont-Neufa cult film and economic sinking that has stuck with him since 1991.

It is true that the man, walled behind his dark glasses, does not pay into the consensual. Cigarette in hand and strangled voice, he explains that cinema is “making films for the dead that we show to the living”.

Benjamin Voisin and Anamaria Vartolomei crowned best hopes

Benjamin Voisin for his role as a young poet mounted in Paris in lost illusions and Anamaria Vartolomei in The eventas a young student who decided to have an abortion in the 1960s, received the Césars for the best male and female hopefuls on Friday.

“I will do my best to” justify this hope in the coming years, launched Benjamin Voisin, 25, by thanking the director of lost illusions Xavier Giannoli for his “indecent generosity”.

“I will be forever grateful to you,” added on the stage of the Olympia the actor who already has around twenty TV movies, plays and feature films to his credit, including Summer 85 by François Ozon, his first major role and first nomination for the Césars, last year.

In lost illusionsadaptation of Balzac, he is the main character, Lucien de Rubempré, young provincial in love with literature, moved to Paris where his dreams will be shattered on the reality of society at the time of the Restoration.

Child of the ball, with a father professor at Cours Florent, of which he joined the benches in 2011, Benjamin Voisin continued his secondary studies in parallel. Five years later, he will go through the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art. We then discover him on screen in the main role of Pridesa series of Arte on adolescence.

At 22, Anamaria Vartolomei won the César for best female hope with her first major role in The event, Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, directed by Audrey Diwan and adapted by Annie Ernaux. She thanked the director, moved to tears: “you are my most beautiful cinema encounter”.

“Your look so fair, so rare, your requirement, your benevolence”, she continued, this César “I owe it to you and I thank you”.

She plays in the film Anne, a pregnant student who decided to have an abortion in the 1960s in France.

“Me, I am lucky to have acquired rights, but which are still fragile. I defended her with the greatest possible interest, because it is terrible, she must choose between her studies, her career or her life. It is unfair ! “, she told AFP in 2021 on the Lido. Born in Romania in Bacau, Anamaria Vartolomei saw her parents leave for France at the age of two. When she was 6 years old, her parents earned enough money to bring her with them to Issy-les-Moulineaux.

It was at school that she discovered the theater before signing up for a distribution for a film by Eva Ionesco, My Little Princesswhere she will play at the age of 10.

Aissatou Diallo Sagna, caregiver and best supporting role

“This Caesar is ours, the caregivers! “: Aissatou Diallo Sagna, caregiver, received the prize for best actress in a supporting role, won under the nose and beard of actresses like Cécile de France or Jeanne Balibar, for her role in The divide.

Revelation of this film by Catherine Corsini on France at the time of “yellow vests”, this 38-year-old non-professional actress embodies her own role.

She plays Kim, omnipresent and very charismatic in the emergency department of a Parisian hospital where she works, during a tense night.

That night, dozens of “yellow vests” flock after a demonstration that degenerated: police violence, overwhelmed caregivers, lack of resources… So many subjects that this mother of three children knows well.

“This Caesar, he is ours, the caregivers. This is our reward, ”she rejoiced behind the scenes.

“Tuesday, I will be at my post,” she said. “I am a ‘wonder woman’: I can continue my job and also shoot. It is not incompatible, ”continued the nursing assistant, beaming.

“I have three children at home and bills to pay. I must continue to work. I am overwhelmed tonight: I have a new baby! This Caesar is like a baby. »

It was her colleagues who had discovered the announcement of the distribution on social networks. After a period of hesitation, she had finally decided to take the plunge.

“I have a big thought for my healthcare colleagues. They supported me from the start, as did the caregivers who were with me on the film, ”she said to reporters on Friday.