Jacques Audiard’s predicted Oscar-bound “Emilia Pérez” has unveiled its full bombastic trailer.
The Cannes award-winning musical follows four women in Mexico who are each pursuing their own happiness. The official synopsis reads: “The fearsome cartel leader Emilia (Karla Sofía Gascón) enlists Rita (Zoe Saldaña), an unappreciated lawyer stuck in a dead-end job, to help fake her death so that Emilia can finally live authentically as her true self.”
Selena Gomez plays Jessi, with Adriana Paz as Epifanía and Edgar Ramírez as Gustavo.
The film won the Cannes Jury Prize and the Cannes Best Actress Prize for the four lead stars of Gascón, Saldaña, Gomez, and Paz. The ensemble cast is also being feted at a slew of festivals.
The feature was also awarded the Cannes Soundtrack Award upon its world premiere, with music by Clément Ducol and Camille.
“Emilia Pérez” was selected by France as its International Feature Oscar submission, as announced in September 2024. Audiard’s 2009 film “A Prophet” was one of the most recent submissions from France to receive a Best International Feature nomination.
“Emilia Pérez” beat out other shortlisted French films “All We Imagine as Light” from director Payal Kapadia, “The Count of Monte Cristo” from director Alexandre de La Patellière, and “Misericordia” from director Alain Guiraudie, all of which also premiered at Cannes.
Audiard co-wrote the film with Thomas Bidegain, Nicolas Livecchi, and Léa Mysius. “Emilia Pérez” is produced by Audiard, Pascal Caucheteux, Valérie Schermann, and Anthony Vaccarello, with Pauline Lamy, Nicolás Celis, Gary Farkas, Jeremy Levinson, Masha Magonova, Vincent Maraval, and Delphine Tomson executive producing.
Writer/director Audiard told IndieWire’s Anne Thompson that the “operatic” stylization of the film allowed for “Emilia Pérez” to fully capture the “social and existential tragedy” of its story.
“The musical comedy style helps carry that through musical drama, where singing and dancing do play a role,” Audiard said. “Because when you write a standard script, you start out, you have a setup, you have a few pages of that, and then the plot moves forward. But when all of a sudden, you have a song that breaks out, within a second, you hit the emotion immediately, you understand the meaning. There’s an efficacy that a standard script would not grant you.”
“Emilia Pérez” premieres in select theaters November 1 and will stream on Netflix November 13. Check out the new trailer below.
