The film doesn’t have a release date yet, it doesn’t even have a distributor… But it shouldn’t take long to get one. This Saturday evening, “38.5 Quai des Orfèvres”, Benjamin Lehrer’s first feature film, won the Grand Prix at the 26th Alpe-d’Huez International Comedy Film Festival. This absurd, trashy and totally crazy farce, with Didier Bourdon, Caroline Anglade, Artus or even Pascal Demolon, has the air of “City of Fear” and happily parodies “The Silence of the Lambs”. In announcing this award, Karin Viard, the president of the jury, praised “the creativity, the inventiveness, the mastery and joy of the actors, in freedom but completely directed”.
The other big winner of the evening is “Les Petites Victoires”, crowned by… a double victory: the comedy by Mélanie Auffret won the special jury prize and the public prize. In this very nice film on rurality, in theaters on March 1, Julia Piaton camps opposite Michel Blanc, a mayor and teacher of a small Breton village who is fighting to save local shops and whose school is suddenly threatened. “Ladies and gentlemen, think of your little victories! exclaimed the 31-year-old director. It was after screening her short film at the Alpe-d’Huez Festival in 2016 that Mélanie Auffret was spotted by producer Foucauld Barré. The latter then produced “Roxane”, the filmmaker’s first feature film, released in 2019, and then, therefore, “Les Petites Victoires”.
Because “there were not enough prizes”, as explained by the juror Stéphane Foenkinos, this 2023 jury created a new one: the “favorite prize”. This one was given “unanimously” to “December 23”, a Quebec comedy by Miryam Bouchard, a kind of charming, funny and deliciously romantic “Love actually”, already released in Quebec and which has no date yet. distribution in France.
The prize for female interpretation was awarded to Brune Moulin, the young actress of “La Plus Belle pour aller danser”, by Victoria Bedos (which is released on April 19). In this sensitive comedy, the 15-year-old teenager, whose first role in the cinema, plays a young girl who disguises herself as a man to get closer to the boy she is in love with. “I’m going to cry,” said the pretty actress on stage. After thanking “especially Victoria”, she made the room laugh and moved by letting go: “I can’t believe I’m here. I have a math test on Monday and I’m here tonight. “We made the bet of youth”, had underlined the juror Bérengère Krief before announcing her name. “Brune, fuck the maths, you’re an actress! launched a little later (the other juror) Antoine Bertrand.
The jury ensured the show
The prize for male interpretation was awarded to William Lebghil. In “Les Complices”, an offbeat comedy by Cécilia Rouaud (in theaters April 12), the 32-year-old actor plays a naive young man who befriends a hitman played by François Damiens. “It’s my first prize and it makes me too happy”, reacted the actor on stage, who wanted to share his reward with his partners (Damiens and Laura Felpin) and underlined that he had experienced “a shooting of great kindness, great camaraderie”.
The closing ceremony began with a short choreography by the jury (Karin Viard, surrounded by Bérengère Krief, Antoine Bertrand, Stéphane Foenkinos and Camille Chamoux, decked out in a knee brace after being injured the day before while skiing). All five swung their hips to “Wannabe”, by the Spice Girls, after the appearance of Karin Viard, carried by Bérengère Krief, Stéphane Foenkinos and Antoine Bertrand while Camille Chamoux sent rose petals on her… The president of the jury had announced that the choices had been made “with heart, with sincerity”: “We hope that you will agree with us … a minimum”, she had warned.