Cannes: ‘How to Have Sex’ Wins Best Film in 2023 Un Certain Regard

Molly Manning Walker’s Cannes festival breakout How to Have Sex has won the prize for best film in the 2023 Un Certain Regard sidebar. The astounding debut, which follows three British teens out for a summer holiday in Greece that turns dark, was The Hollywood Reporter’s hidden gem pick this Cannes and was among the most talked-about movies on the Croisette this year.

Four African films also took home awards at the Un Certain Regard ceremony Friday night. Asmae El Moudir won Un Certain Regard’s best director honor for her hybrid documentary The Mother of All Lies, a search for the truth behind her family’s stories of the 1981 Bread Riots in Morocco. Kamal Lazraq won the Un Certain Regard jury prize for Hounds, a crime drama set in the suburbs of Casablanca. Omen, the directing debut of Belgian Congolese hip-hop artist Baloji, took the new voice prize for best first feature. Sudanese drama Goodbye Julia from director Mohamed Kordofani — another debut — won the Un Certain Regard’s freedom prize. African cinema, often overlooked or ignored in Cannes, has had pride of place at this year’s festival, with a record number of films in the official lineup.

The Un Certain Regard prize for best ensemble went to Brazilian drama The Buriti Flower by João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora. The film traces the history of the indigenous Krahô tribe and their decades-long struggle for land rights.

American actor John C. Reilly chaired this year’s Un Certain Regard jury, which also included French director and screenwriter Alice Winocour, German actress Paula Beer, French Cambodian director and producer Davy Chou and Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne.