2024 Women In Motion Emerging Talent Award:
Kering and the Festival de Cannes to present the award to Malaysian director Amanda Nell Eu
Kering and the Festival de Cannes are proud to present the 2024 Women In Motion Emerging Talent Award to Malaysian filmmaker Amanda Nell Eu, selected by Swiss director and 2023 Emerging Talent awardee Carmen Jaquier. Since 2019, the promising female director is chosen by the preceding Award winner to follow in her footsteps and receive this prize, which includes a grant of €50,000 to support the creation of her next film project.
The presentation will take place during the official Women In Motion dinner in Cannes, where Dame Donna Langley, Chairman of the NBCUniversal Studio Group and Chief Content Officer, will receive the Women In Motion Award. Both awards will be presented by François-Henri Pinault, Chairman and CEO of Kering, Iris Knobloch, President of the Festival de Cannes, and Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate of the Festival de Cannes.
Amanda Nell Eu, director of Tiger Stripes, declared: “I am incredibly honored to receive this award, and I want to give an extra thank you to the super bold director Carmen Jaquier. Thank you also to Women In Motion; I am already so grateful that I get to have my voice and use it and express it in a way that is free to me, so to receive this recognition is really special. Thank you to the big Tiger family – everyone involved in putting together Tiger Stripes – I think this film is a representation of the freedom that I am talking about and our potential to be beautiful bad-ass creatures in this world, if we can love, accept and listen to each other more.”
Carmen Jaquier explained her choice by saying: “Upon discovering the wild energy emanating from Tiger Stripes, I felt joy and remembered certain strange and violent tales from my childhood. Thanks to the rebellious power of its protagonist and its staging tinged with tragicomic elements, Amanda Nell Eu disrupts the ‘coming of age’ genre and delivers a jubilant, unique film. She reminds me that cinema is a place of invention, of insolence, and it is a great honor to pass this award on to her.”
For this new edition of its partnership with the Festival de Cannes, Kering pays tribute to Carmen Jaquier with the design of the official Women In Motion poster.
Gender equality is at the heart of Kering's commitments, and the ambition of Women In Motion is to highlight women’s contribution to the film industry, both in front of and behind the camera – and, more broadly, their contribution to culture and the arts.
Launched in May 2015 by Kering as part of its partnership with the Festival de Cannes, Women In Motion has since become an integral part of its official program and has extended its reach around the world through a series of events. Every year in Cannes, the initiative recognizes inspiring figures and talented emerging female talent with its awards. The Emerging Talent Award, which comes with €50,000 to support the work of emerging female directors in the film industry, has already highlighted and supported the work of ten promising women: Leyla Bouzid (Tunisia), Gaya Jiji (Syria), Ida Panahandeh (Iran), Maysaloun Hamoud (Palestine), Carla Simón (Spain), Eva Trobisch (Germany), Maura Delpero (Italy), Shannon Murphy (Australia), Ninja Thyberg (Sweden) and Carmen Jaquier (Switzerland).
In parallel, the Women In Motion Award recognizes the careers and commitments of emblematic figures from the film world: Jane Fonda (2015), Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis (2016), Isabelle Huppert (2017), Patty Jenkins (2018), Gong Li (2019), Salma Hayek Pinault (2021), Viola Davis (2022), Michelle Yeoh (2023), and, in 2024, Dame Donna Langley.
About Amanda Nell Eu
Amanda Nell Eu is a filmmaker based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Her debut feature film Tiger Stripes was the Grand Prize winner of the Semaine de la Critique during the 2023 Festival de Cannes. This marked several firsts as it was the first Malaysian film directed by a female to premiere at Cannes, and the first Malaysian film to win a top prize at Cannes. The film was also the official Malaysian submission for the Academy Awards in 2023.
Amanda Nell Eu graduated from the London Film School with an MA in Filmmaking and is an alumna of Berlinale Talents, Tokyo Talents and Locarno Filmmakers Academy. Her short film It's Easier to Raise Cattle premiered in competition at the Venice International Film Festival and received a Special Mention at the International Short Film Festival Clermont-Ferrand. In her work, she explores the female body and identity within the cultural context of Southeast Asia.
About Women In Motion
Kering's commitment to women is at the heart of the Group's priorities and extends, through Women In Motion, to the field of arts and culture, where gender inequalities are still glaring, even though creation is one of the most powerful vectors for change.
In 2015, Kering launched Women In Motion at the Festival de Cannes with the ambition of highlighting women in cinema, both in front of and behind the camera. The program has since expanded in a major way to photography, but also to art, design, choreography, and music. Through its Awards, the program recognizes inspirational figures and emerging female talent, while its Talks and Podcasts provide an opportunity for leading personalities to share their views on the representation of women in their profession.
Since it was created, Women In Motion has become a platform of choice that contributes to changing mindsets and thinking on the place of women - and the recognition they receive - in the arts and culture.
About Kering
A global Luxury group, Kering manages the development of a series of renowned Houses in Fashion, Leather Goods and Jewelry: Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Brioni, Boucheron, Pomellato, DoDo, Qeelin and Ginori 1735, as well as Kering Eyewear and Kering Beauté. By placing creativity at the heart of its strategy, Kering enables its Houses to set new limits in terms of their creative expression while crafting tomorrow’s Luxury in a sustainable and responsible way. We capture these beliefs in our signature: “Empowering Imagination”.
For more information
Please visit the Women In Motion press section on kering.com