Just 36 hours before the 80th edition of the Oscars, France film industry honored actress Marion Cotillard with a Best Actress Cesar, the French equivalent of the Oscar for her portrayal of late French pop singer Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose.”

The film was nominated for 11 Cesars and received a total of five wins at the televised event held at Paris’ Theatre du Chatelet, Friday.

“La Vie en Rose” has made a modest $10 million in box office to date in the United States, earning above some other Oscar-nominated films, such as “In the Valley of Elaf” and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” but well below more well known nominees, such as “Juno” and “Michael Clayton.”

Cotillard was a favorite in the annual Cesar competition, after critics agreed that she captured the soul of France’s queen of song in the film.

The 32-year-old actress who is also nominated for three Oscars on Sunday has already won a British BAFTA and a Golden Globe. If she takes home an Oscar, Cotillard will become the first French Best Actress winner since Simone Signoret in 1960.

“Olivier, you have changed my life as an actress, you simply changed my life. You have written the most beautiful role in the world,” Cotillard said, thanking director Olivier Dahan, who had been nominated for best director, the Associated Press reported.

Cotillard is presently in talks to star in the Rob Marshall-directed musical “Nine” accompanying “No Country for Old Men’s” Javier Bardem and actresses Penelope Cruz and Sophia Loren.

“La Graine et Le Mulet” (The Secret of the Grain), telling the story of a Tunisian immigrant family in the southern French town of Sete, took the award for best movie. The film won other three awards, including the best director award and the best original screenplay for Abdellatif Kechiche and the best upcoming actress award for 21-year-old Hafsia Herzi’s leading role.

Mathieu Amalric won the best actor Cesar for playing a French magazine editor left paralyzed by a stroke in “Le Scaphandre et le Papillon” (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). The film was an adaptation of Jean Dominique Bauby’s memoir.

“The Lives of Others” by German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, telling the story of a Stasi secret service officer in former East Germany with conflicting loyalties, won the Cesar for best foreign movie.

Now that the Cesars’ fever is gone, let’s have some bets on who is going to be the big winner at the Oscars on Sunday.