Rahim scoops Patrick Dewaere Award

by Fabien Lemercier

31/03/2010 - After his European Film Award for Best Actor 2009 and his double win at the Césars 2010 (Best Actor and Best Male Newcomer), for his performance in Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet [trailer, film focus], Tahar Rahim adds another accolade to his collection with the Patrick Dewaere Award, which is presented every year to French cinema’s promising new talents.

The actor is currently in Paris shooting Lou Ye’s Bitch, which tells a story of intense amorous infatuation between a French blue-collar worker and a young Chinese teacher recently exiled to the French capital. Produced by Les Films du Lendemain, the feature has an advance on receipts from the National Film and Moving Image Centre (CNC) and backing from the Ile-de-France region.

This summer, Rahim is set to shoot Free Men, the second feature by Ismaël Ferroukhi after The Big Journey (Lion of the Future Award at Venice 2004 and BAFTA nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006). The film will be produced by Pyramide and backed by the CNC’s advances on receipts committee.

The women’s counterpart to the Patrick Dewaere Award, the Romy Schneider Award, went to Canadian actress Marie Josée Croze, who won acclaim last year in Zabou Breitman’s Someone I Loved [trailer] and Julie Lopes-Curval’s Hidden Diary [trailer], and recently in Tony Gatlif’s Freedom [trailer]. She will soon be seen in Nicole Garcia’s A View of Love.

(Translated from French)