The 19th Jacques-Deray Prize for French detective films was awarded to La Nuit du 12 by Dominik Moll, notably with Bastien Bouillon and Bouli Lanners, the Institut Lumière announced on Thursday, January 12. The prize will be awarded on February 4. This film "immerses the viewer in a judicial police brigade, and delivers a political work on femicides," stated the jury, also pointing to the success of the film with the public.
A Franco-Belgian thriller co-produced by Haut et Court and Versus Production, the film is inspired by a news item recounted by Pauline Guéna during her investigation at Versailles Criminal Investigation Department (118.3, une année à la PJ, Gallimard). It features a detective from the Grenoble police force investigating the murder of a young girl on the night of the 12th. The interrogations follow one another, the suspects are not lacking, and the doubts of the inspector keep growing. This feature film shows how each investigator in the department comes across a crime that he cannot solve and that haunts him.
Dominik Moll has already made several dark films: With a Friend Like Harry... (2002), Lemming (2005) or Only the Animals (2019).
The Jacques-Deray prize, named after the Lyon director of La Piscine and Borsalino and former vice-president of the Institut Lumière, was created in 2005, two years after his death. La Nuit du 12 succeeds Médecin de nuit by Elie Wajeman, La Daronne by Jean-Paul Salomé, Roubaix, une lumière by Arnaud Desplechin, En liberté ! by Pierre Salvadori, Mon garçon by Christian Carion and Diamant noir by Arthur Harari.