09/12/2019 - The feature by Bruno Dumont has been crowned Best French Film of the Year, while Stéphane Batut’s Burning Ghost has come out on top in the Best First Film category

Joan of Arc by Bruno Dumont

Handed out by a jury of critics and film-industry personalities, and presided over by Gilles Jacob, the prestigious 2019 Louis-Delluc Award for Best French Film of the Year has gone to Joan of Arc [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bruno Dumont
film profile] by Bruno Dumont. The winner of a Special Mention from the Un Certain Regard jury at the Cannes Film Festival, this feature, starring Lise Leplat Prudhomme in the main role and inspired by Charles Péguy’s stage play The Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc, is the sequel to Jeannette, the Childhood of Joan of Arc [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bruno Dumont
film profile] (premiered in 2017), but adopts quite a different tone. It is the ninth feature-length fiction film by the director, who is due to wrap the shoot for his new opus, On a Half Clear Morning [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bruno Dumont
film profile], this week. Produced by 3B Productions, Joan of Arc was distributed in France by Les Films du Losange and is being sold overseas by Luxbox.

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The Louis-Delluc Award for Best First Film was conferred upon Burning Ghost [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Stéphane Batut, which was also world-premiered at Cannes last May, as part of the ACID programme, before going on to win the Jean Vigo Award and being victorious at the Champs-Elysées Film Festival. The feature, starring Thimotée Robart and Judith Chemla, ventures into a genre that is not often seen in French film output – the ghost film – but at the same time injecting it with a romantic storyline, a poetic peculiarity and a strong dose of realism as it wanders through modern-day Paris. Produced by Zadig Films, Burning Ghost is being sold abroad by Les Films du Losange (which released it in French cinemas in late August).

(Translated from French)