Beasts of the Southern Wild wins top prize at Deauville

Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild won the Grand Prize at the 38th Deauville American Film Festival today.

Writer director Lucy Mulloy’s Una Noche clinched the Grand Jury prize. The film, which is sold internationally by Fortissimo, has yet to find a distributor in France.

In a separate category, Rachid Djaidani’s Hold Back (Rengaine) won the Michel D’Ornano prize for best first French film. The film is bring sold internationally by Pathe international and Haut et Court will release in France on Nov 14.

Beasts of the Southern Wild also won Deauville’s Cartier Revelation Prize.

Zeitlin’s Hurricane Katrina-inspired fantasy will be released in France on Dec 12 by ARP.

It has already picked up a slews of awards this year including the Grand Jury and Cinematography prizes at Sundance and the Camera D’Or for best first film at Cannes where it screened in un Certain Regard.

In other awards, Michel Gondry’s The We and the I was feted with the International Critics’ Prize.

Overall 15 first and second films competed in Deauville’s Competitive section also including Craig Zobel’s Compliance, Rebecca Thomas’ Electrick Children and Matt Ruskin’s Booster.