César Awards: 'Fatima' Scoops Surprise Best Picture Win

The César Awards were a mixed bag this evening, spreading prizes amongst a handful of titles and ending with a surprise Best Picture win for Philippe Faucon’s drama Fatima, Deadline.com reports.

Kino Lorber last week acquired U.S. rights to the portrait of an immigrant cleaning woman and her relationship with her daughters that’s based on the experiences and poetry of North African writer Fatima Elayoubi. This was a Directors’ Fortnight selection at Cannes in May and recently won France’s prestigious Prix Louis Delluc. It had four nominations coming into this evening and won three of its categories.

But there was much love for another Fortnight title, Mustang, which had appeared to have the momentum throughout the evening to take it to the final win. The film by Deniz Gamze Erguven has an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film on Sunday and tonight won four of its nine categories including Best Debut Feature, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Music and Best Editing.

Xavier Giannoli’s Venice charmer Marguerite also scooped four prizes including Best Actress for Catherine Frot. It had tied Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Days for the most nominations heading into the evening, but that film was almost shut out, advancing in only the Best Director race. Jacques Audiard’s Palme d’Or winner Dheepan was entirely shut out.

The ceremony itself was typically over-long with too many gags and banter that fell somewhat flat. It ran for three full hours with no commercial breaks. Contrary to other awards shows, winners are given a full two minutes to make acceptance speeches and don’t really get played off. In many cases, though, it’s the presenters who run longer than the laureates. Still, props to comedian and actress Florence Foresti who brought some new blood to the proceedings as host.