La Semaine de la Critique : Théodore Pellerin, winner of the Louis Roederer Rising Star Award 2025
22/05/2025 – Cannes
The Louis Roederer Foundation, true to its desire to reveal emerging talent, has been involved alongside La Semaine de la Critique since 2018 through the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award. Given to an actor or actress from one of the seven feature films in competition, the aim of this Prize is to highlight a performer for one of their first film appearances or for a particularly outstanding role in their career.
© Capucine Henry
Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star 2025
The jury of the 64th Semaine de la Critique awarded the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award to Théodore Pellerin for his role in Nino by director Pauline Loquès.
Nino will be released in cinemas on 17 September 2025.
Playing a role is one thing, bringing it to life is quite another. Théodore Pellerin’s understated performance draws us into the depths of his character Nino. Théodore restores all the majesty of Nino’s being, and that’s what cinema is all about.
Synopsis
Nino, the first French feature film by director Pauline Loquès, had its world premiere at La Semaine de la Critique of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. In this real-time chronicle, Pauline Loquès paints the portrait of a young man whose life is turned upside down on the eve of his birthday. In three days’ time, Nino will have to face a major test. Between now and then, the doctors have given him two assignments. Two imperatives that will take the young man across Paris and force him to come to terms with others and with himself.
The situation is critical but the film stills away from pathos, always seeking for the light even in the dark of the night. Quebec actor Théodore Pellerin plays the luminous Nino. His natural grace shines throughout the film and on his partners.
Pauline Loquès’s kind and caring way of looking at things revealed in me an acting style I didn’t know yet.
© Capucine Henry
Biography
Coming from an artistic background – a choreographer mother, a painter father – Théodore Pellerin is one of the most promising faces in Quebec cinema. As a teenager, he made a name for himself in Quebec television series, most notably in 30 Vies, where he played the character of Sammy Azoulay.
After supporting roles in Philippe Lesage’s Les Démons and André Turpin’s Endorphine, he made his mark in Xavier Dolan’s Juste la fin du monde.
His career then took a decisive turn with his first major role in Sophie Dupuis’ Chien de garde, for which he received the Iris Award for Best Newcomer of the Year (Canada’s equivalent of the Césars).
As well as starring in films d’auteur, he opened up to international productions. In Hollywood, he starred opposite Nicole Kidman in Boy Erased. Staying true to his roots, he reunited with Sophie Dupuis for Souterrain in 2020, before branching out into different genres with the horror film Killer Game on Netflix. In 2022, he breaks new ground with La Dérive des continents (in south). In 2024, he shines in two major French productions (Franklin, Becoming Karl).
Between dramatic intensity and unsettling elegance, Théodore Pellerin stands out as a chameleon actor, capable of navigating continents, genres and eras with rare accuracy.
© Aurelie Lamachere
2025 Jury
The jury for the 64th edition of La Semaine de la Critique was chaired by Spanish director, screenwriter and producer Rodrigo Sorogoyen, accompanied by Moroccan journalist Jihane Bougrine, French-Canadian director of photography Josée Deshaies, Indonesian producer Yulia Evina Bhara and Oscar-winning British actor Daniel Kaluuya.
