‘Emilia Perez’ to Represent France in Oscars International Feature Race

France’s revamped Oscar committee has selected Jacques Audiard’s exhilarating redemption thriller “Emilia Perez” for the international feature film race. The movie won two major awards at the Cannes Film Festival and earned rave reviews.

“Emilia Perez” stars Karla Sofía Gascón as a fearsome drug lord who embraces her true self as a woman. The Spanish-language film earned one of Cannes’s longest standing ovations and went on to win the Jury Prize (in a jury presided over by Greta Gerwig), on top of a best actress prize for the ensemble cast, including Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz. The movie was bought by Netflix for the U.S. and the U.K. following its Cannes premiere.

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Audiard is a revered French auteur who won a Palme d’Or with “Dheepan,” and was previously nominated for a foreign-language Oscar with “A Prophet” starring Tahar Rahim.

Although “Emilia Perez” seemed like a shoo-in to rep France in the race, the movie faced some fierce competition. It was one of the four movies shortlisted by France’s Oscar committee, along with “The Count of Monte Cristo,” a critically acclaimed epic adventure film adapted from Alexandre Dumas’ classic; Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light” and Alain Guiraudie’s offbeat thriller “Misericordia.” The biggest rival of “Emilia Perez” was Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière’s “The Count of Monte Cristo” which has been a smash box office hit in France (selling over 8 million tickets in theaters since its June release) and has also also garnered critical praise since world premiering out of competition at Cannes. “Emilia Perez” has sold nearly 750,000 tickets in France since being released on Aug. 21 by Pathé (which also distributed “The Count of Monte Cristo”). Netflix will premiere the film in select theaters in the U.S. on Nov. 1.

The selection was done in two rounds by a new Oscar committee presided over by Charles Tesson, the former artistic director of Cannes’ Critics Week. Appointed for two years, members include “Emmanuelle” director Audrey Diwan who won Venice’s Golden Lion with “Happening” in 2021; critically acclaimed French playwright, director and producer Florian Zeller (“The Father”); former Lionsgate boss Patrick Wachsberger; international sales veterans Carole Baraton from Charades, and Gregoire Melin from Kinology; powerful French distributor Michèle Halberstadt from ARP Selection; producers Rosalie Varda (“Faces Places”) from Ciné-Tamaris, Nadim Cheikhroua (“Olfa’s Daughters”) and David Thion (“Anatomy of a Fall”) at Les Films Pelléas; and actor Clemence Poesy.

As part of the process, producers, sales agents and U.S. distributors (Samuel Goldwyn Films for “The Count of Monte Cristo‘ and Janus/Sideshow for both “All We Imagine as Light” and “Misericordia”) of all four shortlisted films were auditioned Wednesday by the committee. The latter was expanded from seven to 11 members and five alternates earlier this year after the backlash over the “Anatomy of a Fall” snub.

Last year’s committee faced a widespread backlash after passing on Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning movie which ultimately earned five Oscar nominations in major categories and won best original screenplay. The decision to send the culinary romance “The Taste of Things” instead of “Anatomy of a Fall” was slammed as a missed opportunity to give France its first Oscar win for best international feature in over three decades.

While “All We Imagine as Light” wasn’t chosen to represent France, the movie’s Indian’s co-producers have told Variety that they have also submitted for consideration to the Oscar committee in India. “Emilia Perez,” meanwhile, will be pushed by Netflix in most major categories at the Oscars (including director, film and actress) beyond international feature. Audiard’s movie just had buzzy North American premieres at Telluride and Toronto and will next open the American French Film Festival in Los Angeles, as part of a red-carpet event presented in association with Netflix on Oct. 29.