The Grand Prix of the 47th Deauville American Film Festival went to “Down with the King”, by Diego Ongaro, while “Pleasure” and “Red Rocket” both received the Jury Prize.
For the 47th edition of the Deauville American Film Festival, the jury chaired by Charlotte Gainsbourg awarded the most prestigious of its prizes to Down with the King by Diego Ongaro. The film tells the story of rapper Money Merc, who is supposed to compose a new album in a house away from it all. But, tired by his career and the pressure that surrounds it, he discovers an unexpected taste for the life of a farmer.
The feature film denounces among other things the shortcomings of an artistic industry, in this case music, a recurring theme in the films awarded by the jury of this edition.
As it has almost become traditional, the jurors awarded a Jury Prize ex-aequo. First to the sulphurous Pleasure of the Swedish Ninja Thyberg whose only poster has already reacted (in theaters October 20) then to Sean Baker’s Red Rocket (Tangerine, The Florida Project), which also received the Critics’ Award and is dated February 2. And there again, the two films attack one industry, and the same!
Selected in competition at the Cannes Film Festival last July, Red rocket features the return of an ex-porn actor to his hometown of Texas, and everything he’s going to be willing to do to get back on track financially, while Pleasure recounts the arrival of a Swedish woman in Los Angeles to embark on a pornographic industry shown to be bleak.
Plattform Produktion An image taken from “Pleasure”, Jury Prize.
The public of the city of Deauville has meanwhile been seduced by a political subject: Blue Bayou worn by Alicia Vikander and Justin Chon, also screenwriter and director of the film. He had already come to the Festival with the solid Gook in 2017, but had left empty-handed. This year, his story of a Korean-American threatened with deportation won the Audience Award and is released on September 15 on our screens.
The Revelation Prize, rewarding an “innovative” film went to John and the Hole by Pascal Sisto, a surprising fable of a pre-teenager deciding to confine his parents and his sister in an abandoned bunker, a “hole”, and this for no apparent reason. An enigmatic feature film that captivated the Revelation Jury.
The complete list of Deauville 2021:
- Grand Prize: Down with the King by Diego Ongaro
- Jury Prize ex-aequo: Pleasure by Ninja Thyberg and Red Rocket by Sean Baker
- Critic’s Award: Red Rocket by Sean Baker
- Public Prize: Blue Bayou by Justin Chon
- Revelation price: John and the Hole by Pascual Sisto
- Ornano-Valenti price: Les Magnétiques by Vincent Maël Cardona (prize aimed at the American export of a French film) – Release on November 17 at the cinema.
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