Marine Atlan’s debut feature La Gradiva has claimed the top honor at Cannes’ Critics’ Week parallel section, walking away with the prestigious AMI Paris Grand Prize after wowing a jury headed by Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia (All We Imagine As Light).
The film follows a group of French teenagers on a school excursion to Naples, where an encounter with the preserved victims of Vesuvius at Pompeii unleashes a torrent of pent-up emotion and longing among the students, who find themselves overwhelmed by ancient beauty and their own awakening desires.
Check out a clip for La Gradiva below.
Kapadia, whose own film All We Imagine as Light took the Grand Prix at Cannes two years ago, led a jury that included Québécois actor Théodore Pellerin, musician Oklou, Ghanaian-British producer Ama Ampadu, and journalist and Bangkok World Film Festival director Donsaron Kovitvanitcha.
The Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award went to Spanish actress-turned-director Aina Clotet for Viva, her feature directorial debut. The wry, bittersweet comedy, set against a sweltering Catalan summer, follows a woman navigating a wholesale reassessment of her life and career in the wake of a breast cancer diagnosis.
