A couple with financial problems who are expecting a sixth child, faced with a couple of lawyers who cannot manage to have one: such is the synopsis of “Sixth child”, the big winner of an Angoulême film festival at the very societal topics.
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The Sixth Child, the first film by Léopold Legrand which questions the deep desire for motherhood, triumphed at the 2022 Angoulême Francophone Film Festival with four prizes, including that of the screenplay and the best actress. The latter was awarded ex-aequo to actresses Sara Giraudeau and Judith Chemla, according to the prize list unveiled on August 28 at the start of the evening. The film, an adaptation by Léopold Legrand and Catherine Paillé of the novel crying rivers by Alain Jaspard, also won the Valois Music Prize (Louis Sclavis) and the Valois Audience Prize. It hits theaters on September 28.
Among the ten films in competition – including seven by female directors – The Blue of the Caftan by Moroccan Maryam Touzani, is the other winner of the festival, very marked this year by societal issues. This aesthetically controlled film won the Valois for directing and for actor, awarded to Saleh Bakri. The actor embodies the character of Halim who, with his wife Mina (Lubna Azabal), has always lived with the secret of his homosexuality, until the arrival of an apprentice in their traditional kaftan shop upsets this balance .
First feature film by Quebecer Geneviève Albert, Noémie says yes, on the phenomenon of adolescent prostitution in Canada, received the Valois for Francophone students, with a special mention for actress Kelly Depeault. The Valois Rene Laloux (Best Animated Short), was awarded to Tears of the Seinedirected by eight students from the Pôle 3D school on the massacre of Algerian demonstrators on the night of October 17, 1961.
As for the Valois de Diamant, it was awarded to The worst by Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret, a film which has already won the “Un certain regard” prize at the Cannes festival this year. The story takes place in a popular city in Boulogne-sur-Mer where teenagers, far from the usual criteria of cinema, are chosen during a casting. The public came en masse to the Angoulême festival, with 52,000 people in the halls according to official figures, or 15,000 more people compared to 2021.