The Believe in Cinema prize awarded to “La Nuit du 12”

The Croire au Cinéma prize was awarded on Tuesday 31 January to La Nuit du 12 by Dominik Moll. This film – one of the favorites of the next Cesars ceremony with ten nominations – was one of the surprise successes of last year. Released at the height of summer, on July 13, this atypical thriller around a feminicide managed to bring together more than 500,000 spectators thanks to excellent word-of-mouth and despite an unfavorable context for attendance. . Carried by a formidable duo of actors, Bouli Lanners and Bastien Bouillon, this film without resolution, inspired by a real news item, confronts very contemporary questions about masculinity.

The jury of the prize, of which La Croix is ​​a partner, salutes “the exceptional work of staging and the formidable direction of actors by Dominik Moll”. “Auscultating with meticulousness the daily life of a group of judicial police investigators, La Nuit du 12 offers a complex picture of society and gender relations, in the context of violence against women. This striking film shows, without any Manichaeism, the confrontation with evil. In their endlessly renewed fight, the characters try to find some form of issue. Like the young investigator who leaves the track of the velodrome where he trained to attack the mountain passes,” he explains.

The jury, made up of five professionals from the cinema, culture or the media, brought together this year the actress Nathalie Besançon, the journalist Bruno Bouvet (head of service at La Croix L’Hebdo), the theologian Dominique Coatanea and the actor and director Naël Marandin, winner last year, under the chairmanship of Frédéric Rossignol, editorial director in charge of the production of “Jour du Seigneur” on France Télévisions.

Eight films in the running for 2022

He singled out La Nuit du 12 from a selection of eight feature films released in France last year. It included My Favorite War, an animated film by Ilze Burkovska Jacobsen (Latvia); The Snow Panther, the beautiful documentary by Vincent Munier and Marie Amiguet (France); Plan 75, by Chie Hayakawa (Japan); The Promises of Hasan, by Semih Kaplanoglu (Turkey); Les Repentis, by Iciar Bollain (Spain); Reste un peu, by Gad Elmaleh and Another World, by Stéphane Brizé (France).

The Croire au cinema prize was created by the Signis association, which organizes the prizes of the ecumenical juries in more than 30 international festivals, including Cannes and Berlin. Its purpose is to distinguish a feature film released in France for its “human or spiritual values” and the way in which “it opens up dialogue on the concerns of our contemporaries and works for peace, justice or forgiveness”. Since 2020, the Croire prize has successively rewarded Adam by Maryam Touzani and La Terre des hommes by Naël Marandin. The award ceremony is planned in public at the cinema Les 7 Parnassiens in Paris, in March, in the presence of the film crew.

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