Quebec director Monia Chokri wins Csar award for best foreign film - Action News
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Quebec director Monia Chokri wins Csar award for best foreign film

The Quebec romantic comedy-drama, Simple Comme Sylvain (The Nature of Love), beat Christoper Nolan's Oppenheimer.

4th time in Csars history that a woman wins best foreign film

Monia Chokri holds the Best Foreign Film Cesar Award
Monia Chokri holds the Best Foreign Film Csar Award for the movie Simple Comme Sylvain during the 49th Csar Awards ceremony in Paris. (Michel Euler/AP)

Quebec's Monia Chokri, director of Simple comme Sylvain (The Nature of Love), won a Csar award for best foreign film on Friday, beating Christoper Nolan's Oppenheimer.

The Quebec film was also up against Marco Bellocchio's L'enlvement, Aki Kaurismaki's Les feuilles mortes, and Wim Wenders's Perfect Days.

This is the fourth time in the history of the Csars that a woman has won in that category, after Jane Campion in 1994, Sofia Coppola in 2005 and Valerie Faris in 2007.

Picking up her trophy on stage at the 48th Csar Awards ceremony for French cinema, Chokri said jokingly, "I'm so sorry Mr. Nolan."

Chokri thanked a host of collaborators, including producer Nancy Grant, known for her work with Xavier Dolan and Anne mond.

"You made me a filmmaker," Chokri said. "I can say today that the life I have is bigger than the one I dreamed of."

The romantic comedy-drama, which stars Magalie Lpine-Blondeau and Pierre-Yves Cardinal, received a seven-minute ovation during its world premiere in Cannes in May 2023, where it was selected in the Un Certain Regard section.

The film has already won awards at the Cabourg Festival, in the north of France, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and the Youth Prize.

Simple comme Sylvain tells the story of Sophia, a 40-year-old philosophy professor who has lived for 10 years with Xavier, a political science professor. Her life changes the day she meets Sylvain, an entrepreneur from the Laurentians whose lifestyle is the polar opposite of hers.

With files from La Presse Canadienne and Radio-Canada