Audacious musical Emilia Perez brings accolades for French composers

Ollia Horton

21 August 2024 at 6:07 am·2-min read

Somewhere between a musical and a telenovela, French director Jacques Audiard’s latest film Emilia Perez pushes the boundaries of storytelling. Collecting two awards at the Cannes Film Festival in May, the film also earned recognition for its fascinating and challenging score, composed by the French duo Clément Ducol and Camille.

Emilia Perez wowed audiences in Cannes this year with its experimental hybrid form in which the entire cast sings, dances and speaks in Spanish.

Set in Mexico but filmed entirely in a studio near Paris, the film blends drama, romance, comedy and thriller elements, swinging between the incredible and the convincing.

The plot is anything but conventional. It follows Manitas, a powerful Mexican cartel boss played by transgender actress Karla Sofia Gascon, who embarks on a dangerous quest to become a woman – keeping the transformation secret from his wife (played by Selena Gomez) and children.

Daring plotline

Enter Rita (Zoe Saldana), a disillusioned lawyer roped into Manitas’s plan for a hefty sum, leading to the birth of Emilia Perez (also played by Gascon) and the unfolding of a surprise love story involving Epifania (Adriana Paz).

This unpredictable and daring scenario convinced musicians Clément Ducol and Camille to join Audiard’s ambitious project.

Although they didn’t know Audiard personally, they were recommended by a friend familiar with Ducol’s work on the Annette soundtrack, the opening film at Cannes in 2021.

Ducol recalls how the project began with just the outline of an idea inspired by Boris Razon’s story Ecoute (Listen).

“I believed in the project immediately because it fundamentally shows what theatre is all about,” she says.

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Daring plotline

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