The Artist Dujardin Bejo - H 2011
Weinstein Company
PARIS – Already making noise stateside, Michel Hazanavicius’ silent film The Artist will add France’s Lumiere Awards to its awards season palette with five nominations in a tough race against Bertrand Bonello’s House of Tolerance, Pierre Schoeller’s The Minister, Aki Kaurismaki’s Le Havre and Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache’s Untouchable.
The nominations for this year’s Lumiere Awards, France’s equivalent to the Golden Globes, were announced on Tuesday in Paris.
Untouchable is currently living up to its name as the comedic drama continues to top the Gallic box office with 975,089 tickets sold through the end of the year. All other titles in the Best Film category first screened at this year’s Festival de Cannes.
Bonello, Hazanavicius, Kaurismaki, Schoeller and Poliss director Maiwenn will vie for the title of Best Director.
Poliss will also compete against House of Tolerance, The Artist, The Minister and Robert Guediguian’s The Snows of Kilimandjaro for the Best Screenplay prize. Golden Globe nominee Berenice Bejo was also nominated in her home country for her role in The Artist in a competitive race against mother-daughter duo Catherine Deneuve and Chiara Mastroianni for their roles as mother and daughter in Christophe Honore’s Cannes closer The Beloved, War is Declared star and director Valerie Donzelli, Clotilde Hesme in Alix Delaporte’s Angele and Tony and Marina Fois and Karin Viard for Maiwenn’s ensemble drama Poliss.
This year’s French-accented heartthrob Jean Dujardin was nominated for his role in The Artist that has already earned him the Best Actor prize at this year’s Festival de Cannes and a Golden Globe nom. He’ll compete against Olivier Gourmet for his role as a politician in The Minister, Joey Starr (Poliss), Omar Sy (Untouchable) and Andre Wilms (Le Havre).
The House of Tolerance was certainly tolerated by France’s foreign press who vote on the prizes with three nominations for the film in the Most Promising Actress category that will see Alice Barnole, Adele Haenel and Celine Sallette compete against Annamaria Vartolomei (My Little Princess) and Zoe Heran (Tomboy).
Young talents in the Best Actor category include Gregory Gadebois for Angele and Tony, Guillaume Gouix in Teddy Lussi-Modeste’s Jimmy Riviere, Raphael Ferret in Vincent Garinq’s Presumed Guilty, Denis Menochet in Melanie Laurent’s Les Adoptes and Mahmoud Shalaby in Ismael Ferroukhi’s Les Hommes libres.
Vying for the Best Francophone Film outside of France are Canadian titles Denis Cote’s Curling and Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies, Belgian movies Bouli Lanners’ The Giants and the Dardenne brothers’ The Kid on a Bicycle and Nadine Labaki’s Franco-Lebanese-Italian co-production Where Do We Go Now?
Organizers also gave a “Very Honorable Mention” to the dog in The Artist.
The Lumiere Awards ceremony will be held on Jan. 13 in Paris’ lavish town hall the Hotel de Ville.
