2023 Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard awards: Molly Manning Walker’s ‘How to Have Sex’ wins top prize for her debut

John C. Reilly and his fellow jurors Paula Beer, Davy Chou, Alice Winocour and Émilie Dequenne have revealed their awards for the Un Certain Regard section of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where Molly Manning Walker’s electric debut feature How to Have Sex won the group’s top prize.

How to Have Sex simmers as a rite of passage sex comedy and a cautionary tale as a group of three British best mates – Tara, Skye, and Em – who party non-stop on holiday in Malia, Crete, with one seemingly important catch: Tara, played by the charming and fantastic Mia McKenna-Bruce, is still a virgin. The film will be distributed by MUBI.

Ahead of the festival, Walker detailed her purpose for the film, saying, “I reconnected with friends from high school and we remembered the girls’ vacations we used to have. As we talked about these stories, I began to realize the impact they had had on our understanding of sex. I wanted to write something about the pressure on young people to have sex. I wanted to make sure the film was told from the girls’ point of view, without judging them. A film that captures both the best and the worst time of your life.”

Asmae El Moudir’s breathtaking Kadib Abyad (The Mother of All Lies) won her the Best Director award for her film which painstakingly recreates 1981 Moroccan riots also known as the Casablanca bread riots, in the form of handheld figurines.

20 films were selected for this year’s UCR section, including 8 debut films. The 2022 Un Certain Regard top prize went to the debut feature of French directors Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret, Les Pires (The Worst Ones).

Winners for the in competition films as well as Camera d’Or prizes and more will be held live in Cannes at the Grand Palais theater tomorrow Saturday, May 27 at 8:30pm.

Un Certain Regard Prize: How to Have Sex by Molly Manning Walker – review

Jury Prize: Hounds by Kamal Lazraq

Best Director: Kadib Abyad (The Mother of All Lies) by Asmae El Moudir – review

Freedom Prize: Goodbye Julia by Mohamed Kordofani

Ensemble Prize: Crowra (The Burti Flower) by João Salaviza, Renée Nader Messora (award also goes to cast and crew)

New Voice Prize: Augure (Omen) by Baloji Tshiani

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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