'' EMILIA PEREZ '' : SPANISH FILM HONOURS

The French Filmmaker Jacques Audiard is known for hard-hitting crime dramas with incisive social commentary. He doesn't often enjoy musicals and doesn't speak Spanish.

Yet his latest work, the offbeat '' Emilia Perez, '' which began streaming Wednesday on Netflix, is a Spanish-language musical set amid Mexico's drug wars.

He lifted the protagonist from the pages of Boris Razon's 2018 novel, ''Ecoute'' about our hyperconnected, perpetual online world.

One chapter features a ruthless Mexican cartel boss seeking a gender transition who hires a lawyer to help with logistics.

For the titular role, Audard 72, cast the Spanish actress Karla Sofia Gascon [ a trans woman herself ], and changed the attorney in the book from a man to a woman, played by Zoe Saldana.

To write the movie's many tracks, he enlisted the singer Camille Dalmais and the composer Clement Ducol.

Shot almost entirely on soundstages in Paris, the film debuted in May, at the Cannes Film Festival to mostly positive reactions that praised the film for its way of ''testing the limits of character sympathy as well as shifting tones and moods,'' as The New York Times's chief critic, Manohla Dargis, put it.

Though some reviewers expressed reservations about the portrayal of Emila Perez herself.

In the end, the film's four stars Gascon, Saldana, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz - shared the best actress award, while the film won the jury prize [ essentially third place ].

The World Students Society thanks Carlos Aguilar.