A specialized committee of the National Center for Cinema and Animated Image (CNC) decided, after a series of hearings conducted on Tuesday, October 12, to designate the film Titanium like representative of France at the next Oscars ceremony.
“We are very proud that Titane, a particularly exceptional film, can wear the colors of France”, commented Dominique Boutonnat, president of the CNC, in a press release aired Tuesday evening. The competition will take place in Los Angeles on March 27, 2022.
The film follows the character of Alexia, played by Agathe Rousselle, who survives a serious car accident thanks to a prosthesis embedded above the ear, containing titanium – a metal resistant to high temperatures.
“More diversity in our cinema experiences”
The Cannes Film Festival had struck a blow, in July, by crowning Julia Ducournau for a furiously contemporary work, the Frenchwoman becoming the second director in the history of the Festival to receive the Palme d’Or.
The jury, chaired by Spike Lee, came to reward the youngest of the competition, 37 years old, twenty-eight years after the Palme d’Or of Jane Campion for The piano lesson. Julia Ducournau thanked the jury for having “Recognized the greedy and visceral need we have for a more fluid and inclusive world”, and D’“Call for more diversity in our cinema experiences and in our lives”. “I realize that imperfection is a dead end, and that the monstrosity that scares some and runs through my work is a weapon, a force to push back the walls of normativity that lock us in and separate us”, she added.
Two other films were in the running to represent French cinema at the American ceremony: The Event, directed by Audrey Diwan, 41, who adapted Annie Ernaux’s autobiographical tale on clandestine abortion – the film won the Golden Lion in Venice -, and BAC north, signed Cédric Jimenez, a feature film that delves into a case that has wavered the Marseille police, resolutely adopting the point of view of officials.