Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio’s coming-of-age saga “Within the Summers” took home top honors at this year’s 50ththe version of the Deauville American Movie Pageant, winning the Grand Prize and the Louis Roeder Foundation Revelation Prize, awarded by a parallel jury.
Straightforwardly intimate and expansive, the film paints a portrait of a Latin American family, utilizing four vignettes to span 20 years, as it follows the evolving and sometimes challenging relationship two brothers share with their father, played by Puerto Rican rapper and luminary Residente. “In the Summers” previously won the Grand Jury Prize and Director’s Award at Sundance, and is set to be released by Music Field Movies next week.
“I have always been a big fan of French cinema, so it was an honor to show my film at the Deauville American Movie Festival,” says the director. Selection. “Winning was unbelievable; (I’m) extremely grateful. I hope this allows more audiences around the world to have the ability to experience the film.”
The Deauville jury trophy went to Nnamdi Asomugha’s debut, “The Knife.” After a stellar NFL career, the athlete-turned-actor is now continuing his rise as an award-winning filmmaker with a tense, claustrophobic drama about a family man — played by Asomugha himself — who becomes the victim of a home invasion and then gets caught up in a prejudicial justice system. The film previously won awards for direction and cinematography at Tribeca last June.
‘The Knife’
Deauville American Film Competition
Spirits are high at this 50the version, and the various juries would like to share. While Deauville festival-goers celebrated Brandt Andersen’s “The Strangers’ Case” with the Audience Award, a press jury awarded David Fortune’s “Coloration E book” the Critics’ Award. To mark the momentous occasion, the competition also issued a pair of special accolades, awarding the 50th Anniversary Barrière Prize to Alonso Ruizpalacios’ “La Cocina” and the Canal+ 50th Anniversary Special Prize to Todd Wiseman Jr.’s “The Faculty Duel.”
Rounding out the awards, “Rabia,” by director Mareike Engelhardt, won the D’Ornano-Valenti Prize – an award given to the debut of a French feature film and voted on by delegates from the English-language press.
The competition’s closing ceremony capped off a record-breaking edition that saw the number of entrants reach new highs, while welcoming guests and honorees including Francis Ford Coppola, Sean Baker, Michael Douglas, Michelle Williams, James Grey, Daisy Ridley and Sebastian Stan.
At a certain level, the film competition grew into a film define when director Joachim Trier used the Deauville purple carpet to film scenes for his upcoming project “Sentimental Worth”, while the international glamour mix reached its peak at Saturday’s closing ceremony, where Isabelle Adjani paid a moving tribute to Nathalie Portman.
‘Rabies’
However, smooth sailing was not always guaranteed. In June, longtime creative director Bruno Barde was suspended after being accused of sexual misconduct, while incoming director Aude Hesbert took over having to navigate a maelstrom associated with a previously inducted jury member who had previously admitted to inappropriate conduct around a minor before having all charges against him dropped.
Two weeks before the competition began—and four days before the formal start of her tenure as Deauville’s director—Hesbert chose to formally disinvite the controversial juror, resulting in media scorn and ongoing litigation. However, the new creative director stands by her inaugural determination.
“You don’t want to revolutionize a competition when you first arrive,” says Hesbert. “However, we were in a really explicit situation. The competition was at breaking point, and the crew was still reeling from the departure of my predecessor, who had not behaved in an exemplary manner. I didn’t want to send mixed messages, and I wasn’t comfortable with this invitation either, so collectively we made a particularly difficult but also extraordinarily necessary decision to give everyone a fresh start.”
As the French film industry continues to reel from its own #MeToo reckoning, Hesbert wants his competition to serve as a meeting point for the American and French sectors.
“We need to come together to consider what is acceptable, what is not, and what we want for the future of our careers,” she says. “Deauville should be a platform for commerce around these issues, a place for dialogue between the two industries so that we can both share best practices. Many people greatly admire the creative freedom that exists in French cinema, while we can learn a lot from American pragmatism and the mechanisms put in place to combat past excesses.”
“The long tradition of energy imbalance is not just limited to filmmaking,” Hesbert continues. “The same is true for any kind of team management, so we have to invent new ways to organize and deal with tradition. And we will be asking for this for a long time, because we cannot solve such deep social issues immediately.”
‘The College Duel’
Ahead of his first full-length release at the helm, Hesbert is keen to develop Deauville’s commercial presence in the US and strengthen its reputation in the Oscar race.
Pointing in the direction of this year’s Palme d’Or winner, Hesbert notes that Sean Baker has been a fixture on the Normandy coast longer than he’s been on the Croisette, and that Baker’s 2015 jury prize for “Tangerine” helped introduce the much-lauded filmmaker to France. And, at least across the home market, the competition also served as a springboard for Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun,” which won the competition’s top prize in 2022 after a more muted release in Cannes.
Those two threads intertwined this year when Deauville gave “Anora” lead Mikey Madison the Hollywood Rising Star award, shining a spotlight on the young nominee for the award before a packed audience of Academy voters. Certainly, with the AMPAS body growing increasingly globally — and with Deauville continuing to attract substantial European attention and audiences — Hesbert believes his competition should play a commensurate role as a showcase for the season’s hopefuls.
She also wants to help aspiring filmmakers find a safer place.
“I’m often told that it’s easier to source a first-look film in France,” she says. “We have to make American filmmakers aware of the different ways they can work with us. The[French National Film Board’s]World Cinema Fund has opened up to American cinema lately, while international productions can always come here to benefit from our tax breaks. Through independent productions, we can accomplish a lot together.”
‘Coloring book’
