CANNES, France – On the penultimate night of the film festival, L’Oréal Paris once again turned the spotlight toward the next generation of female filmmakers, awarding Chinese director Lenti Liang the sixth annual Lights on Women’s Worth Award for her short film “Our Secrets.”
Celebrated with a splashy ceremony on the beach, Gillian Anderson, who served as this year’s juror, presented the prize to Liang.
During the ceremony, which was presided over by festival president Iris Knobloch and L’Oréal global brand president Laetitia Toupet, Anderson praised Liang’s filmmaking for its restraint and emotional precision, calling it “a beautiful and mature, quiet, confident film.”
She highlighted the director’s use of “small sounds, awkward silences and obscure framing” to capture both adolescent awakening and “the quiet confusion around seemingly innocent actions by a male doctor” that left a lasting emotional impact on her.
“It’s a very, very special film that has stayed with me,” she said.
