Catherine Deneuve President, "Monte-Cristo" vs. "L'amour ouf": What to Expect from the 50th César Awards

The Césars are pulling out all the stops for their 50th edition on Friday, February 28, with Catherine Deneuve as president of the evening and two popular hits as favorites, The Count of Monte Cristo and Love Phew as well as the musical comedy Emilia Perez.

A year after Justine Triet's victory for Anatomy of a Fall, only male filmmakers are in the running for the Best Director trophy. With 14 nominations, The Count of Monte Cristo is the favorite, after having delighted 9.4 million spectators, becoming the second biggest success of the year in France.

It is in competition with L'Amour ouf by Gilles Lellouche (4.9 million spectators in France).

The consecration of one of these films or the comedy En Fanfare with Benjamin Lavernhe and Pierre Lottin, could help change the image of the Académie des César, which is sometimes considered disconnected from the public.

Even if the biggest hit of 2024 in France with 10.8 million spectators, Un p'tit truc en plus by Artus and his troupe of actors with disabilities, will at best be satisfied with a single statuette, that of the best first film.

For the other big contender, Jacques Audiard's Emilia Perez , the suspense is complete. A visual and sound firework, this Spanish-language musical about the gender transition of a Mexican drug trafficker is well placed with 12 nominations.

But things are not going well. The controversies in Mexico over how Emilia Perez represents the violence linked to drug trafficking have been added to by revelations about old messages from the main actress, Karla Sofia Gascón, on social networks . In them, she calls Islam a "hotbed of infection for humanity" and mocks diversity in entertainment.

Since then, the film's campaign for the Oscars has been weighed down. What impact will this have on the César voters? While Karla Sofia Gason seems out of the running, Hollywood star Zoé Saldaña could snatch a César for best actress.

Other feature films could create a surprise, such as Miséricorde , an auteur film with a more confidential audience by Alain Guiraudie, and L'Histoire de Souleymane by Boris Lojkine, on the Parisian odyssey of an undocumented delivery man with Abou Sangare, crowned with the Best Actor Award in the Un Certain Regard section.

These 50th Césars will have a special flavor: for the occasion, the presidency was offered to Catherine Deneuve, who let herself be convinced. "I will go on stage for three minutes, it's not my favorite moment by the way, and then I will follow the ceremony," the French actress confided to Le Monde.

On the presentation side, humor is guaranteed with Jean-Pascal Zadi, best male hope 2021 for Tout simplement noir . As is now customary, he will share the animation with a bunch of personalities, including Emmanuelle Béart, Cécile de France, Pio Marmaï, Raphaël Quenard and Justine Triet. The American star Julia Roberts and the Franco-Greek director Costa-Gavras are to receive an honorary César.

Will the popular stars nominated in the various categories, from Tahar Rahim, Pierre Niney and François Civil to Catherine Frot, Alain Chabat and Adèle Exarchopoulos, be enough to boost the audiences for the evening, broadcast in the clear from the Olympia from 8:45 p.m. on Canal+? Last year, 1.86 million viewers watched the evening, a slight improvement, but still far from the 3.9 million viewers reached in 2012.

Artists could use the platform to express their concerns about budget cuts to culture or the threats that artificial intelligence poses to creativity.

The issue of financing cinema, and the influence of conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré, owner of the Canal+ group, will be on everyone's mind. Broadcaster of the evening and leading financier of French cinema, the encrypted channel is engaged in a tug-of-war to maintain its privileges against platforms, or reduce its bill.