A partner of the France Culture Cinema Award at Cannes for the past two years, UniFrance aims to strengthen its activities geared toward film students with the creation of a new award, the International Students Award, in association with France Culture.
With this award, the two partners wish to honor a French short film and feature film, with the winning films decided by a jury of students from 7 film schools from around the world.
For UniFrance, the goal of this initiative is to enhance the visibility of French cinema among young audiences abroad, reach out to new audiences, and explore potential collaborations between movie enthusiasts across the globe.
The following 7 film schools are in partnership with the initiative:
USC School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles, USA
University of Chicago, USA
Dankook Graduate School of Cinematic Content in Yongin, South Korea
Griffith Film School in Brisbane, Australia
Ryerson University, School of Image Arts in Toronto, Canada
Sam Spiegel Film & Television School, Israel
Ecole Supérieure des Arts Visuels in Marrakech, Morocco
For this first edition of the award, 3 feature films and 3 short films were selected by UniFrance and France Culture, which were then viewed by the students from the 7 international film schools:
FEATURE FILMS
SHORT FILMS
The winners of the 2016 UniFrance/France Culture International Student Awards are:
- Deniz Gamze Erguven, director of Mustang: Winner of the Feature Film Award
Produced by Charles Gillibert (CG productions)
Deniz Gamze Erguven is a Franco-Turkish director and screenwriter who was born in 1978. She moved to France in the 1980s and entered the FEMIS Film School in the Directing Department in 2002, graduating in 2006. Mustang, her debut feature, was released in France in June 2015 and brought her work to the attention of the wider public. It won the Cesar Award for Best First Film and Best Original Screenplay, and represented France at the Oscars in 2016.
- Maïmouna Doucouré, director of Mother(s): Winner of the Short Film Award
Produced by Bien ou Bien Productions
Maïmouna Doucouré is a French actress, screenwriter, and director. Her short film Mother(s) won the Best Short Film Award in the International Competition at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, the Short Film Jury Award for International Fiction at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, and the Jury Prize at CoLCoA in 2016.
The 2016 UniFrance/France Culture International Student Awards were presented at Cannes on Saturday, May 14, at 11 a.m. at a ceremony held in the presence of UniFrance president Jean-Paul Salomé, our executive director Isabelle Giordano, Mathieu Gallet, president of Radio France, and Sandrine Treiner, director of France Culture.
Two other prizes were also presented at this awards ceremony:
Frederick Wiseman: Winner of the France Culture "Consecration" Award for his entire body of work
Alexander Nanau: Winner of the France Culture Student Cinema Award for Toto et ses sœurs.
