In a night that celebrated the best of French cinema, talents of African descent Mati Diop and Abou Sangare emerged victorious. It was the 30th Lumiere Awards, which gives out awards decided by international journalists based in France and this year took place at Forum des Images in Paris.
Dahomey, by the Senegalese-French Diop, won the award for Best Documentary. Guinean actor Abou Sangare won the award for Best Actor for his role in Souleymane’s Story, a film directed by Boris Lojkine.
Diop’s win follows her Golden Bear triumph at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival for the same film. She is also up for the Best Documentary award at the 2025 Oscars. Sangare’s victory follows his wins at the Cannes Film Festival and the European Film Awards.
The Lumiere Awards also saw Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez winning the top prize for Best Film of 2024. The film, which also earned Audiard the Best Director and Best Screenplay awards, won five awards, the highest on the night. Audiard made history at the awards, becoming the first director to win Best Film three times and Best Director four times.
Other notable winners at the awards include Gints Zilbalodis’s Flow, which was named Best Animated Film, Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which won Best International Co-Production, and Louise Courvoisier’s Holy Cow winning Best First Film and Best Male Newcomer for Clément Faveau.
Other winners at the ceremony included Julien Colonna’s The Kingdom, which earned Ghjuvanna Benedetti the Best Female Newcomer award, and The Count of Monte-Cristo by Alexandre de la Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte, which took home the Best Photography award courtesy of Nicolas Bolduc.
Here is the full list of winners at the 2025 Lumiere Awards
- Best Actor – Abou Sangare – Souleymane’s Story (France)
- Best Documentary – Dahomey – Mati Diop (France/Senegal/Benin)
- Best Film – Emilia Pérez – Jacques Audiard (France)
- Best Director – Jacques Audiard – Emilia Pérez
- Best Actress – Karla Sofía Gascón – Emilia Pérez
- Best Screenplay – Jacques Audiard – Emilia Pérez
- Best First Film – Holy Cow – Louise Courvoisier (France)
- Best Female Newcomer – Ghjuvanna Benedetti – The Kingdom (France)
- Best Male Newcomer – Clément Faveau – Holy Cow
- Best Animated Film – Flow – Gints Zilbalodis (France/Latvia/Belgium)
- Best International Co-Production – The Seed of the Sacred Fig – Mohammad Rasoulof (Germany/France/Iran)
- Best Photography – Nicolas Bolduc – The Count of Monte-Cristo (France/Belgium)
- Best Music – Camille and Clément Ducol – Emilia Pérez
