(Paris) The Count of Monte Cristo, Emilia Perez, All we imagine as light And Mercy are the four films pre-selected to represent France at the Oscars in March 2025, the National Cinema Center (CNC) announced on Wednesday.
The committee responsible for this selection is due to meet again on September 18 to conduct auditions, at the end of which it will designate “the film that will represent France in the race for the Oscar for best international film 2025,” the CNC said in a press release.
This preselection therefore includes one of the biggest successes of the year in France, The Count of Monte Cristoby Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte, still in theaters after eleven weeks of operation.
The adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ novel, starring Pierre Niney as Edmond Dantès, has surpassed 8 million admissions, according to CBO Box-Office data released Wednesday.
The list also includes Jacques Audiard’s musical, Emilia PerezJury Prize at the last Cannes Film Festival and collective acting prize for Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and the leading transgender actress Karla Sofía Gascón.
The CNC commission also retained All we imagine as lightby the young Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia, a social and feminist chronicle which received the Grand Prix at Cannes, and whose production is notably French.
The rural polar MercyAlain Guiraudie’s seventh feature film with Catherine Frot and Félix Kysyl, completes this selection of potential candidates.
For the 2024 edition, France, which had proposed The passion of Dodin Bouffantby Tran Anh Hung, to the detriment in particular ofAnatomy of a fallhad not been selected in the category of best foreign film by the Academy of Oscars.
The Palme d’Or of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival had, however, been notably nominated in the “best film” category by the Academy, and had obtained the statuette for best original screenplay.
Its co-producer has now joined the commission, which is made up of a total of eleven film professionals with equal numbers of women and men and chaired by Charles Tesson, former head of Critics’ Week in Cannes.