César voters love Amour
Amour might be the Austrian nomination for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, but the film academy in France claimed Michael Haneke’s French-language drama as one of its own, to bestow five César Awards on it at a ceremony in Paris.
Being there to collect his own awards for Best Film, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay meant that Haneke couldn’t make an event in Hollywood to honour the directors of Oscar’s Foreign Language nominees, sending his producers in his place.
The French voters also gave Amour the top acting awards for its octogenarian stars, with Jean-Louis Trintignant receiving the Best Actor honours, while Emmanuelle Riva took the trophy for Best Actress, a category she’s also in contention for at the Oscars.
There were three awards for Rust and Bone, which missed out on being France’s Oscar contender to Untouchable, which featured at the Césars last year. Director Jacques Audiard won the Best Adapted Screenplay prize, his male lead Matthias Schoenaerts was recognised as the Best Male Newcomer and Rust and Bone also took the César for its original music.
The supporting actor awards went to Guillaume de Tonquedec and Valérie Benguigui for Le Prénom, which will be released international a What’s In a Name?
Three of the technical awards, cinematography, production design and costume, went to Les Adieux à la Reine, to be released overseas Farewell, my Queen – the queen being Marie Antoinette. Best Sound went to Cloclo, the biopic of the French co-writer of My Way, Claude François.
Among the other awards handed out on the night was the Best Foreign Film prize which went to Argo, giving Ben Affleck’s hostage thriller one final push – albeit a very small one – on its way to a predicted Oscar success.
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