Simple comme Sylvain came out on top of Christoper Nolan’s Oppenheimer: “I’m so sorry, Mr. Nolan,” she said in Paris picking up her award.
Published Feb 25, 2024 • 1 minute read
Quebec actress and film director Monia Chokri celebrates after winning the Best Foreign Film award for the film Simple Comme Sylvain during the 49th edition of the Cesar Film Awards ceremony at the Olympia venue in Paris on Feb. 23, 2024. Photo by GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT /AFP via Getty Images
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Quebec’s Monia Chokri, director of Simple comme Sylvain (The Nature of Love), won a César award for best foreign film on Friday, beating Christoper Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
In addition to Oppenheimer, which has won numerous Golden Globe and BAFTA awards, among others, the Quebec film was up against Marco Bellocchio’s L’enlèvement, Aki Kaurismaki’s Les feuilles mortes and Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days.
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Picking up her trophy in Paris at the 48th César Awards ceremony for French cinema, Chokri said: “I’m so sorry, Mr. Nolan.”
“Thank you to the Academy, thank you to the members for voting for this little Quebec film made with so much love,” the 48-year-old actor and director said in her acceptance speech, which was posted by Canal + to X (formerly Twitter).
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“Thank you to the French public who went to see the film, you’re the reason we make films. Thank you to the Cannes Film Festival for putting the spotlight on the film.”
Simple comme Sylvain was selected to compete in the Cannes festival last May in its Un Certain Regard competition, which recognizes films from emerging filmmakers.
Among those Chokri thanked were her Quebec producers and actors Magalie Lépine-Blondeau and Pierre-Yves Cardinal, who were in the audience. She signed off this way: “I can say today that the life I have is greater than the one I dreamed of.”
The César Award is the national film award of France; it is considered the country’s greatest film honour — the French film industry’s equivalent of the Academy Award. Nominations are selected by members of 12 categories of filmmaking professionals and supported by France’s culture ministry.
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