While waiting for the Césars, which take place on Friday February 24, let’s welcome Cleopatra. For this first edition of the Cléopâtre prize organized by the magazine “Causette”, the public prize went to Alice Diop for “Saint-Omer” and the jury prize to Rebecca Zlotowski for “Les Enfants des autres”.
They won against Alice Winocour and “Revoir Paris”, Patricia Mazuy and “Bowling Saturne”, Blandine Lenoir and “Annie Colère” and Charlotte Le Bon and “Falcon Lake”.
Alice Diop and Marie NDiaye, meeting with two powerful women
But let’s get back to the genesis of this unprecedented prize: on January 25, the list of nominees for the César for best director falls: Cédric Klapisch, Louis Garrel, Cédric Jimenez, Dominik Moll and Albert Serra are in the running. But where are the women? “I propose that we stop the Caesars and that we mount the Cleopatras”, ironically then the deputy EELV Marie-Charlotte Garin on Twitter, the same day.
A tweet started as a joke, but taken literally by the feminist magazine “Causette”, which decided to seize the well-found formula to launch its cinema prize reserved for women: the Cleopatra prize.
“At the forefront of male interpersonality”: at the César 2023, where did the directors go?
The objective: to make women filmmakers visible, since they seem to have been forgotten by official competitions. This award supports the efforts already made by the Alice Guy prize, which has honored the director of the year since 2018. Will there be a second edition of the Cleopatra Prize? Everything will depend on the reaction of the César academy, confides Anna Cuxac, editor-in-chief of “Causette” to “Parisien”, on February 23:
“For the moment we are there, it is a hot reaction which is meant to be funny and impertinent, if the Césars forget good films or good directors then, yes, we will leave for a 2nd edition”.
