Deneuve President, The Count of Monte Cristo vs. Love Phew: What to Expect from the 50th César Awards

The Césars are pulling out all the stops for their 50th edition on Friday, February 28, with Catherine Deneuve as president of the evening and two popular hits as favorites. With 14 nominations, The Count of Monte Cristo favorite, after having delighted 9.4 million spectators, becoming the second biggest success of the year in France. It is in competition with L'Amour ouf by Gilles Lellouche (4.9 million spectators in France) with 13 citations.

Also read Cesar: The Count of Monte Cristo, Love Phew and then Emilia Perez at the top of the nominations

The coronation of one of these films, or of the comedy En Fanfare with Benjamin Lavernhe and Pierre Lottin, could help change the image of the César Academy, which is sometimes considered disconnected from the public. Even if the biggest hit of 2024 in France with 10.8 million spectators, Un p'tit truc en plus by Artus and its troupe of actors with disabilities, will at best be satisfied with a single statuette, that of the best first film.

For the other big contender, Jacques Audiard's Emilia Pérez , the suspense is complete. A visual and sound firework, this Spanish-language musical about the gender transition of a Mexican drug trafficker is well placed with 12 nominations. But things are not going well. In addition to the controversy in Mexico over the way Emilia Pérez represents the violence linked to drug trafficking, there have been revelations about old messages from the lead actress, Karla Sofia Gascón, on social networks. In them, she calls Islam a " hotbed of infection for humanity " and mocks diversity in entertainment. What will the impact be on the César voters? If Karla Sofia Gason seems out of the running, her co-star Zoé Saldaña could snatch a César for best actress.

Other feature films could create a surprise, such as Miséricorde , an auteur film with a more confidential audience by Alain Guiraudie, and L'Histoire de Souleymane , by Boris Lojkine, about the Parisian odyssey of an undocumented delivery man.

These ^50th Césars will have a special flavor: for the occasion, the presidency was offered to Catherine Deneuve, who let herself be convinced. " I'm going to go on stage for three minutes, it's not my favorite moment, and then I'm going to follow the ceremony ," she confided to Le Monde. Will the popular stars nominated in the different categories, from Tahar Rahim, Pierre Niney and François Civil to Catherine Frot, Alain Chabat and Adèle Exarchopoulos, be enough to boost the audiences of the evening, broadcast from the Olympia from 8:45 p.m. on Canal+? Last year, 1.86 million spectators followed the evening, a slight improvement, but still far from the 3.9 million viewers reached in 2012.

Jean-Pascal Zadi, best male newcomer 2021 for Tout simplement noir, presents the ceremony. As is now customary, he will share the animation with a bunch of personalities, including Emmanuelle Béart, Cécile de France, Pio Marmaï, Raphaël Quenard and Justine Triet . The American star Julia Roberts and the Franco-Greek director Costa-Gavras are to receive an honorary César. Artists could also take advantage of the platform to express their concerns about the budget cuts inflicted on culture or the threats that artificial intelligence poses to creation.