Les garçons et Guillaume, à table! (Me, Myself and Mum) held sway with the French Academy Friday night in Paris. The Cannes 2013 feature took home a bevy of Césars in Paris, picking up five prizes, including Best Picture, Best Debut Feature, Best Actor for writer/director/star Guillaume Gallienne, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Editing. Roman Polanski won the Best Director prize for Venus in Fur, also a Cannes premiere.
Polanski said he, “really didn't expect this,” according to Deadline. In other prizes, Sandrine Kiberlain won the Best Actress César for 9 mois ferme (9 Month Stretch), while Sur le chemin de l'école took Best Documentary. Belgium's The Broken Circle Breakdown by Felix van Groeningen took Best Foreign Film. The feature is also competing in the same category at this Sunday's Oscars.
The prize for Female Actress Newcomer went to Adèle Exarchopoulos for her role in Blue Is the Warmest Color. The actress along with co-star Léa Seydoux received a Palme d'Or along with the film at last year's Festival de Cannes. The film had its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival last fall. Best Supporting Actor Friday went to Niels Arestrup for Quai d'Orsay (The French Minister). The film will screen at the upcoming Rendez-Vous with French Cinema as the Closing Night Film.
Her star Scarlett Johansson received an Honorary César, which was presented by Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino said that of all honors, none were “as important as a French cinema honor” and added that he had hoped to vote for her for Best Actress at the Oscars, but that he was “robbed of that satisfaction.” “Thank you for giving me this cultural refuge,” said Johansson, according to Deadline.
Comedy Me, Myself and Mum centers on an upper-middle-class woman with three children, two of whom she considers her sons and another she calls Guillaume. Guillaume does not consider himself a boy. Through a series of painful chain of experiences, Guillaume slowly discovers who he is actually and manages to break free from his mother's pernicious influence.
[Related: The Lineup of the Rendez Vous with French Cinema ]
2014 César Award winners:
Best Picture – Les garçons et Guillaume, à table! (Me, Myself and Mum)
Best Actress – Sandrine Kiberlain, 9 mois ferme
Best Actor – Guillaume Gallienne, Les garçons et Guillaume, à table!
Best Director – Roman Polanski,
Best Supporting Actress – Adèle Haenel, Suzanne
Best Foreign Film – The Broken Circle Breakdown
Best Cinematography – Thomas Hardmeier, The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet
Best Editing – Valérie Deseine, Les garçons et Guillaume, à table!
Best Adapted Screenplay – Guillaume Gallienne, Les garçons et Guillaume, à table!
Best Documentary – Sur le chemin de l’ecole, Pascal Plisson
Best Newcomer (Male) – Pierre Deladonchamps, Stranger by the Lake
Best Supporting Actor – Niels Arestrup, Quai d’Orsay (The French Minister)
Best Original Screenplay – Albert Dupontel, 9 mois ferme
Best Debut Feature – Les garçons et Guillaume, à table!, Guillaume Gallienne
Newcomer (Female) – Adèle Exarchopoulos, Blue Is The Warmest Color
[For additional César winners, visit Deadline.com]
