Haitian filmmaker Gessica Généus received the Villa Medici Prize for Greatest Movie for Marie Madeleine, including one other worldwide award to a profession constructed round telling tales about Haiti.
Généus obtained the award Sept. 19 throughout the sixth Villa Medici Film Festival in Rome, which ran from Sept. 16 to twenty.
Marie Madeleine was one in all 12 movies chosen for the pageant’s worldwide competitors, which introduced collectively fiction, documentary and experimental movies from all over the world.
Set in Jacmel, the primary metropolis of Haiti’s Southeast Division, the 104-minute movie—which Généus directs and stars in—vibrantly reimagines the biblical story of Mary Magdalene, following a free-spirited Haitian intercourse employee whose serendipitous involvement with a repressed preacher’s son opens up new potentialities for each.
The story follows the lady portraying Marie Madeleine as she earns a dwelling via intercourse work and meets Joseph, a younger evangelist. Their relationship brings collectively two very completely different worlds as Joseph’s religion begins to vary and Marie Madeleine pursues her personal freedom.
The Villa Medici jury awarded Marie Madeleine the pageant’s prime prize. The award comes with €5,000, or about $5,700, and the chance for the filmmaker to participate in a residency at Villa Medici.
The jury additionally acknowledged the movie for its exploration of religion, freedom and selections folks make. The pageant described the movie as a narrative by which religion can turn out to be each a “refuge and a jail.”
“The Villa Medici Prize for Greatest Movie is awarded to Marie Madeleine by Gessica Génésus for her exploration of what occurs when perception turns into each a refuge and a jail,” the jury mentioned in asserting its verdict.
Jurors additionally highlighted Généus’ braveness in being keen to shake “the very foundations of every little thing now we have been taught, her imaginative and prescient and the extraordinary humanity of her movie.”
The excellence provides one other main worldwide honor to Généus’ rising movie profession. Her earlier movies, together with “Freda” and “Douvan Jou Ka Leve,” have additionally obtained awards and recognition at worldwide festivals.
Freda, Genéus’s first characteristic movie, introduced much more worldwide consideration. The movie premiered on the 2021 Cannes Movie Competition within the Un Sure Regard part. It additionally obtained a particular point out for the François Chalais Award. Nonetheless, the movie went on to obtain a number of further pageant honors worldwide.
Généus started her profession as an actor and later moved into directing and producing. She has additionally appeared in different Haitian productions reminiscent of “Kidnapping Inc.,” a Haitian movie that premiered on the Sundance Movie Competition in 2024 earlier than being proven in Haiti.
Her work has remained carefully tied to Haiti, each in topic and manufacturing.
Freda was filmed in Port-au-Prince and examines the alternatives Haitians face as they contemplate whether or not to remain or depart. Marie Madeleine continues that focus, this time via a narrative set in Jacmel, a seaside city famend for its tourism.
On the Movie Competition of Villa Medici 2026 in Rome, Marie Madeleine was proven in Haitian Creole with English subtitles.
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