Marine Atlan’s debut feature La Gradiva has claimed the top honor at Cannes’ Critics’ Week parallel section, walking away with the prestigious AMI Paris Grand Prize after wowing a jury headed by Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia (All We Imagine As Light).
The film follows a group of French teenagers on a school excursion to Naples, where an encounter with the preserved victims of Vesuvius at Pompeii unleashes a torrent of pent-up emotion and longing among the students, who find themselves overwhelmed by ancient beauty and their own awakening desires.
Check out a clip for La Gradiva below.
Kapadia, whose own film All We Imagine as Light took the Grand Prix at Cannes two years ago, led a jury that included Québécois actor Théodore Pellerin, musician Oklou, Ghanaian-British producer Ama Ampadu, and journalist and Bangkok World Film Festival director Donsaron Kovitvanitcha.
The Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award went to Spanish actress-turned-director Aina Clotet for Viva, her feature directorial debut. The wry, bittersweet comedy, set against a sweltering Catalan summer, follows a woman navigating a wholesale reassessment of her life and career in the wake of a breast cancer diagnosis.
‘Viva’
Courtesy of Cannes Critics’ Week
Among the collateral prizes, Chinese director Zou Jing’s A Girl Unknown claimed the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution, with Pyramide Distribution set to handle its French release. The film charts the life of a young girl passed between three families — each giving her a new identity — as part of a broader reckoning with the mass abandonment of newborn girls under China’s one-child policy.
The SACD Award for best screenplay was shared by director Blerta Basholli and co-writer Nicole Borgeat for Dua, a coming-of-age drama set in Kosovo on the eve of the late-1990s war.
In the short film categories, Romain F. Dubois took the Sony Discovery Prize for Skinny Boots, while Berthold Wahjudi’s “Vaterland” or A Bule Named Yanto claimed the Canal+ Award.
Now in its 65th edition, Critics’ Week — which focuses exclusively on first and second features from emerging filmmakers — screened 11 features chosen from more than 1,050 submissions, alongside ten short films. The section opened with Phuong Mai Nguyen’s In Waves and closed with Adieu Monde Cruel.
Find the full list of 2025 Cannes Critics’ Week winners below.
AMI Paris Grand Prize
La Gradiva, director: Marine Atlan
Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award
Viva, director: Aina Clotet
Gan Foundation Award for Distribution
A Girl Unknown, director: Zou Jing
SACD Award
Dua, director: Blerta Basholli
Sony Discovery Prize for Short Film
Skinny Boots, director: Romain F. Dubois
Canal+ Award for Short Film
“Vaterland” or A Bule Named Yanto, director: Berthold Wahjudi
