Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio’s coming-of-age saga “In the Summers” took top honors at this year’s 50th edition of the Deauville American Film Festival, claiming both the Grand Prize and the Fondation Louis Roeder Revelation Prize, awarded by a parallel jury.
At once intimate and expansive, the film traces a Latin-American family portrait, using four vignettes to span two decades while following the evolving and often challenged relationship two siblings share with their father, played by Puerto Rican rap great Residente. “In the Summers” had previously won the grand jury prize and the director award out of Sundance, and is set for release by Music Box Films next week.
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“I’ve always been a huge fan of French cinema so it was already an honor to show my film at the Deauville American Film Festival,” the director tells Variety. “To win was unbelievable; [I’m] incredibly grateful. I hope this allows more international audiences to be able to experience the film.”
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The Deauville jury trophy went to Nnamdi Asomugha’s feature debut, “The Knife.” After a sterling NFL career, the athlete-turned-actor now continues his ascent as a prizewinning filmmaker with a tense and claustrophobic drama about a family man – played by Asomugha himself – turned victim of a home invasion then engulfed into a prejudicial justice system. The film had previously won prizes for directing and cinematography at Tribeca this past June.
Spirits were buoyant at this 50th edition, and the various juries had love to share. While Deauville festivalgoers celebrated Brandt Andersen’s “The Strangers’ Case” with the audience award, a press jury awarded David Fortune’s “Color Book” with the critics’ prize. To mark the epochal event, the festival also introduced a pair of special accolades, offering the 50th anniversary Barrière prize to Alonso Ruizpalacios’ “La Cocina” and the Canal+ special 50th anniversary prize to Todd Wiseman Jr.’s “The School Duel.”
Rounding out the awards, director Mareike Engelhardt’s “Rabia” won the D’Ornano-Valenti Prize – an accolade offered to a French feature debut and voted by delegates of the English-language press.
The festival closing ceremony capped a record-setting edition that saw attendance numbers reach new highs while welcoming invitees and honorees like Francis Ford Coppola, Sean Baker, Michael Douglas, Michelle Williams, James Gray, Daisy Ridley, and Sebastian Stan.
At one point, the film festival became a film set when director Joachim Trier used the Deauville red carpet to shoot scenes for his upcoming project “Sentimental Value,” while the mix of international glamor peaked at Saturday’s closing ceremony, where Isabelle Adjani delivered an emotional tribute to Nathalie Portman.
Still, smooth sailing was not always guaranteed. In June, longtime artistic director Bruno Barde was suspended after being accused of sexual misconduct, while incoming director Aude Hesbert assumed her post having to navigate a maelstrom related to an already announced jury member who had previously admitted to inappropriate conduct around a minor before having all charges against him dropped.
Two weeks before the festival was due to kick off – and four days before her tenure as Deauville director officially began – Hesbert opted to formally disinvite the controversial juror, leading to media pushback and still ongoing litigation. But the incoming artistic director stands by her inaugural decision.
“You don’t want to revolutionize a festival when you first arrive,” says Hesbert. “But we were in a very particular context. The festival was under threat, and the team was still shaken by the departure of my predecessor. There were allegations against him for inappropriate behavior, and many guests and talents were uncomfortable with his invitation. So, together with my team, we made an extremely difficult but necessary decision to give everyone a fresh start.”
As the Gallic film industry continues to reel from its own #MeToo reckoning, Hesbert wants her festival to serve as meet-point for the American and French sectors.
“We need to get together to think about what’s acceptable, what’s not, and what we want for the future of the profession,” she says. “Deauville needs to be a platform for exchange around these subjects, a place for dialogue between the two industries so that we both can share best practices. Many Americans greatly admire the artistic freedom that exists in French cinema, whereas we can learn a great deal from American pragmatism and from the mechanisms put in place in to counter past excesses.”
“The long tradition of power imbalance is not just limited to filmmaking,” Hesbert continues. “The same is true for any kind of team management, so we need to invent new ways to organize and manage culture. And we’re going to be asking these for a long time to come, because we can’t solve such profound social issues in an instant.”
Looking ahead to her first full edition at the helm, Hesbert wants to develop Deauville’s U.S. industry footprint and to strengthen the festival’s impact on the Oscar race.
Pointing towards this year’s Palme d’Or winner, Hesbert notes that Sean Baker has been a fixture on the Normandy coast longer than he has on the Croisette, and that Baker’s 2015 jury prize for “Tangerine” helped introduce the much-lauded filmmaker to France. And, at least within the local market, the festival also served as a springboard for Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun,” which won the festival’s top prize in 2022 after a more muted launch in Cannes.
Those two threads entwined this year when Deauville offered “Anora” lead Mikey Madison the Hollywood rising-star prize, spotlighting the young awards contender before an audience rife with Academy voters. Indeed, with the AMPAS body growing all the more international – and with Deauville continuing to draw substantial European attention and attendance – Hesbert believes her festival should play a commensurate role as a showcase for season hopefuls.
She also wants to help emerging filmmakers find surer footing.
“I’m often told that it’s easier to produce a first film in France,” she says. “We need to make American filmmakers aware of the many ways in which they can work with us. [France’s National Film Board’s] world cinema fund has opened up to American cinema in recent years, while international productions can always come here to take advantage of our tax rebates. In terms of independent productions, we can accomplish so much together.”
