On Friday, the top award in the “Un Certain Regard” competition at the Cannes Film Festival went to a film set in the working-class districts of the northern French city of Boulogne-sur-Mer.
“The Worst Ones,” directed by Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret, examines the difficulties of street casting by depicting a community’s reaction to the appearance of a film team.
“I hope that, beyond the reviews, this film will be interpreted as an homage to the birth of cinema since it occasionally enables us to give a voice to individuals who are not often heard,” Gueret said.
According to Deadline, the film is “a fascinating look at the production experience,” with incidents that are “thought stimulating and occasionally darkly humorous.”
The jury prize went to “Joyland,” a film by Saim Sadiq that strives to challenge gender stereotypes in Pakistan and was the country’s first submission to the Cannes Film Festival.
Sarwat Gilani, one of the film’s stars, told Reuters on Tuesday that the film’s Cannes premiere felt like “a dream come true,” and that “the challenges that we experience as artists in Pakistan have all come to be worth it.”
“Un Certain Regard” is an art-house film competition that runs concurrently with the major competition, the Palme d’Or, which will be announced on Saturday.
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