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The Most Precious of Cargoes The Most Precious of Cargoes

France’s 50th César Award nominations, including its animation and vfx categories, were announced yesterday. Winners will be revealed on February 28 during a ceremony held at L’Olympia in Paris.

Michel Hazanavicius’s animated feature The Most Precious of Cargoes, based on Jean-Claude Grumberg’s novel about a young Jewish girl whose father tosses her from a train en route to Auschwitz, leads the feature animation pack with three nominations. The film, helmed by the César-winning director of The Artist, was not only nominated in the animated feature category, but also for adapted screenplay and original soundtrack (Alexandre Desplat). Released theatrically last November in France, it has yet to announce a stateside release date or distributor.

Claude Barras, who previously won the 2017 César animated feature category for the stop-motion feature My Life as a Zucchini, is nominated again in the category for his latest stop-motion feature Savages, about two girls and a baby orangutan who fight back against deforestation in Borneo.

This year’s Oscar-nominated Flow is also nominated for a César. Its French title, Flow, le chat qui n’avait plus peur de l’eau, translates to Flow, The Cat Who was No Longer Afraid of Water. The category only recognizes features with French production credentials, and in the case of Flow, the film’s French producer Ron Dyens (founder of Sacrebleu Productions) is also nominated for the award.

Among the César animated short nominees, Loïc Espuche’s Yuck!, about a little boy’s fear of kissing, is also currently nominated for an Academy Award.

In the visual effects category, three of the four nominees scored highly in other categories. The Alexandre Dumas adaptation The Count of Monte-Cristo written and directed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière received a total of 14 nominations, while Jacques Audaird’s musical drama Emilia Pérez received 12 and directors Mehdi Idir and Grand Corps Malade’s musical biography Monsieur Aznavour received four.

Here are the animation and vfx nominees for this year’s César awards.

Animated Feature

Flow
Directed by Gints Zilbalodis, French co-producer Ron Dyens

The Most Precious of Cargoes
Directed by Michel Hazanavicius, Produced by Patrick Sobelman, Florence Gastaud, Michel Hazanavicius

Savages
Directed by Claude Barras, French co-producers Laurence Petit, Barbara Letellier, Carole Scotta

Animated Short

Yuck!
Directed by Loïc Espuche, Produced by juliette marquet, manon messiant

Gigi
Directed by Cynthia Calvi, Produced by Luc Camilli

Butterfly
Directed by Florence Miailhe, Produced by Ron Dyens, Luc Camilli

Visual Effects

Cédric Fayolle, Hugues Namur, Émilien Lazaron for The Beast

Olivier Cauwet for The Count of Monte-Cristo

Cédric Fayolle for Emilia Pérez

Stéphane Dittoo for Monsieur Aznavour

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