39th Teddy Awards

The Berlinale 2025 program has not been published in full, will happen in February 4th, but Teddy Awards organizers already announced what probably will be the first selection of films competing for Teddy 2025.

The Teddy Award – the most outstanding queer film prize in the world – is a socially engaged, political honor presented to films and people who communicate queer themes on a broad social platform, thereby contributing to tolerance, acceptance, solidarity and equality in society.

During the Berlinale the award is presented in the following categories: Best Feature, Best Documentary / Essay Film, Best Short film and Jury Award as well as the Special Teddy Award which is awarded to outstanding personalities. Every year films from all sections of the Berlin International Film Festival compete for the Teddy Awards.

From 2025, winning the Best Documentary / Essay Film entitles a film to take part in the competition for the Oscar® for Best Documentary Feature.

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97th Academy Awards Nominations

Yesterday, January 23rd, the Academy announced the nominations and yes, watched them live and yes, I'm excited AMPAS members are honoring the magnificent work by Jacques Audiard as Emilia Pérez got the outstanding number of 13 nominations establishing a new record for a non-English movie (previous one are Roma and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with 10 each) and tying with 11 films, including Gone With The Wind, From Here To Eternity, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf and nine more.

Noteworthy, Emilia Pérez almost tied the record for the most nominations ever earned by a single film; and say almost because needed only one more nomination to tie with All About Eve (1950), Titanic (19970, and La La Land (2016) that earned 14 nominations each.

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37th Annual Scripter Awards

Yesterday the USC Libraries announced the finalist for the current edition of the awards that honor the writers of the year's most accomplished film and episodic series adaptations, as well as the writers of works on which they are based.

Among the finalists there are some Oscar hopefuls, especially frontrunners in the adaptation category, Conclave and A Complete Unknown. As we know Conclave won the Golden Globe for adapted screenplay but was not eligible for the WGA awards with also The Wild Robot and Sing Sing not being eligible. The category is really complicated due to rules in each writing award but usually the Scripter winner goes to win the Oscar for adapted screenplay.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is The Wild Robot as is only the second animated movie nominated after Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, which won the Academy Award.

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39th American Society of Cinematographers Awards

Yesterday, January 16, ASC announced the nominees for its 2025 Outstanding Achievement Awards, spanning feature films, documentaries, television and music videos.

Andrzej Bartkowiak will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, while Michael Goi will be recognized with the Career Achievement in Television Award. John Simmons will be awarded the President's Award, and Joan Churchill will be celebrated with the Lifetime Documentary Award. Pete Romano will be honored with the Curtis Clark Technology Award.

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2025 Writers Guild Awards

Yesterday, January 15, 2025 the Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) and Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) announced nominations for outstanding achievement in writing during 2024 for film, television, streaming, news (broadcasst and digital), radio/audio, and promotional categories.

As always have to recall guild rules require writers to be a guild member or under a WGA collective bargaining agreement as otherwise script becomes ineligible; that's the reason why this year screenplays for Oscar contenders Conclave, Sing Sing, The Brutalist and The Substance were left out and the open spots were filled by Challengers, Civil Ward and real surprise My Old Ass.

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2025 BAFTA Awards

A few minutes ago actors Mia McKenna-Bruce and Will Sharpe announced the nominations via a live broadcast from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts 195 Piccadilly in London announced the nominations for the 2025 edition of the Film Awards that celebrate the very best in film over the past year.

From a total of 235 films entered, 42 films received a nomination and Conclave leads with 12 nominations followed by Emilia Pérez with 11 and The Brutalist with 9. Not a milestone was achieved (again) as only 12 of the nominated films are directed by women.

In the Best Director category, three of the six are first-time Director nominees (and nominees for Original Screenplay): Sean Baker (Anora) (who has the most nominations this year, with five), Brady Corbet (The Brutalist) and Coralie Fargeat (The Substance).

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23rd Annual Visual Effects Society Awards

Yesterday, January 14, the Visual Effects Society (VES) announced the nominations for the 2025 edition of the awards that recognizes outstanding visual effects artistry and innovation in features, animation, television, commercials, games and new media, and the VFX Supervisors, VFX Producers and hands-on Artists who bring this work to life.

Nominees in 25 categories were selected by VES members at 49 in-person and virtual nomination panels conducted around the world over a 30-hour continuous process. The distinctive and thoughtful VES Awards nominations protocol included a review of each awards submission including “Befores and Afters” by a minimum of three different judging panels. Participating VES members on the panels represented 307 cities in 24 countries, highlighting the full breadth of the Society’s diverse global membership.

“Whether it’s through a fully immersive environment, realistic characters, or jaw-dropping action sequences, visual effects artists continue to push the boundaries of creativity and transform the way stories are told,” said Diana Colella, Executive Vice President of Media & Entertainment at Autodesk, sponsor of the VES-Autodesk Student Award.

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75th Berlin International Film Festival LIne Up - In Progress

Note: This post will be In Progress until festival full program becomes available at official site, which seems is scheduled to February 4, 2025.

Update: On January 27th new films films were announced for Panorama, Forum and Generation, one for each.  Each section program is complete,

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Update: On January 21st the program was announced via a Press Conference and seems all movies have been announced for all festival sections.  All sections were updated in this post.   Final updated will be after February 4th.

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January 11, 2025
This year the festival will run from February 13 to February 23, 2025 and the Program Press Conference is scheduled to be held on January 21, 2025, at 11am at Haus der Kulturen der Welt. The Berlinale 2025 marks the 75th anniversary of the Berlin International Film Festival and is also the first edition under the direction of Tricia Tuttle.

Tricia Tuttle will open the Press Conference and give an overview of the entire festival program. She will then present the films in the Competition and the new competitive section Perspectives together with the Co-Directors of Film Programming Jacqueline Lyanga and Michael Stütz.

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29th Annual Excellence in Production Design Awards

Yesterday, January 9, the Art Directors Guild announced the nominations for the 29th edition of their annual awards that excellence in production design across theatrical motion pictures, television, commercials, music videos, and animated feature films.

Established in 1937, the Art Directors Guild (ADG, IATSE Local 800) represents 3,300 members who work throughout the world in film, television and theater as: Production Designers and Art Directors; Scenic, Title and Graphic Artists; Set Designers and Model Makers; Illustrators and Matte Artists.

The 2025 Cinematic Imagery Award will be presented to Jason Reitman.  In addition, the ADG will honor Lisa Frazza, Barbara Mesney, Dan Sweetman, and J. Dennis Washington with Lifetime Achievement Awards. Legendary production designer Carl Jules Weyl will be inducted into the ADG Hall of Fame as part of the ceremony.

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31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards

Yesterday, January 8th, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) announced the nominations for the current edition of their annual awards that honor outstanding stunt, individual, cast and ensemble performances for the past year.

Voted on by SAG-AFTRA's membership of 122,000+ performers, the SAG Awards has the largest voting body on the awards circuit and a large number of them are also Academy voting members, therefore is a big crowd of Academy Awards voters that usually profile Oscar nominations and winner.

Wicked leads with 5 nominations followed by A Complete Unknown with 4 and Emilia Pérez and Anora with 3 nominations each.

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77th Annual Directors Guild of America Awards

Yesterday, January 8, the Directors Guild of America President Lesli Linka Glatter announced the five nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film for 2024 and the day before January 7, the guild announced the nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Television, Commercials and Documentary for 2024.

The best news for me is Jaques Audiard nomination for his remarkable Emilia Pérez a film that according to me, is as great as his A Prophet, which by-the-way Audiard didn't got a DGA nomination for; so, this is the first DGA nomination for Audiard, finally!

Most nominees were the ones the industry was expecting, except for James Mangold and most claim that instead of him, Denis Villeneuve or Coralie Fargeat deserved to be there. Whatever the reason to snub them, truth is that there is no female director nominated this year which in the last five year it only happened once in 2020, as in 2021 Chloe Zhao won the award, in 2022 was Jane Campion the winner and in 2023 Greta Gerwing was nominated.

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61st Cinema Audio Society Awards

Yesterday the Cinema Audio Society (CAS) announced its nominees in seven categories for the current year awards honoring Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing.

The CAS Award nominees highlight the outstanding contributions of sound mixers, recognizing excellence in the specialized craft of sound mixing for both film and television. Each year, accomplished CAS members—who possess extensive expertise in the art and science of sound—carefully review hundreds of projects to ensure the nominees truly reflect excellence in sound mixing in Motion Picture and Television entertainment.

The 61st CAS Awards will honor Outstanding Achievements in Sound Mixing in seven categories: Motion Pictures – Live Action, Motion Pictures – Animated, Motion Pictures – Documentary, Non-Theatrical Motion Pictures or Limited Series, Television Series – One Hour, Television Series – Half Hour and Television Non-Fiction, Variety or Music – Series or Specials. The CAS Student Recognition Award will also be presented.

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72nd Annual MPSE Golden Reel Awards Nominations

Yesterday the Motion Picture Sound Editors announced the nominations for the current year awards and Deadpool & Wolverine and Dune: Part Two led the way with 3 nominations each.  Among the movies with more than one nomination we find Oscar top contenders like A Complete Unknown, Emilia Pérez and Wicked.

Let's recall that nominees represent the work of the world's most talented sound artists and their contribution to the past year's most outstanding feature film, television, animation, and computer entertainment productions.

The MPSE Golden Reel Awards recognize outstanding achievement in sound editing in 24 categories encompassing feature films, television, animation, computer entertainment and student work; and covers the various areas of sound editing: Dialogue, ADR, Effects, Foley and Music.

The Career Achievement Award is presented to a person whose career has made a significant impact on the sound community through exemplary work, service, or leadership. Supervising Sound Editor Greg Hedgepath will receive the MPSE Career Achievement Award current year.

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82nd Golden Globes Awards Winners

Last night's Golden Globes awards show was not what used to be in the past (used to be lots more wilder) but was entertaining even when new owners and new voters seem to be doing the same that previous foreign press voters, they spread the wealth among several movies. Proof is that top award winner got 5 wins out of 10 nominations followed by The Brutalist with 4 out of 7 nominations, which left room for several other movies also winning a golden globe.

The red carpet was also different as for my first time ever ended well-before the time when the show started, leaving TV broadcasters trying to kill time with whatever they had available. Variety, ET and CBS broadcast started to show bits from Variety's Actors on Actors web series and just image what local TV stations around the world had to do. Where I am now, they started to gossip!!! (LOL, was awful!).

Will not deny that I'm extremely pleased with Emilia Pérez being the top winner and winner top award as perhaps some of you noticed that usually awards leave drama category for last but in this edition organizers placed Musical or Comedy category last as was what everyone was more interested this year thus becoming the most sought after result. Bravo Jacques Audiard you outdo yourself once again. Yes, I'm totally biased as Audiard is one of my most admired contemporary master film directors. Let's hope that the winning trend continues up to the Oscars but I'm realistic, Academics are quite an older bunch and still skeptic and wonder if they will dare to reward 1) a musical with 2) a trans story.

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#Oscars2025 International Feature Film Shortlist

Yesterday The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the shortlist for the International Feature Film category and even when there are some expected films, there are others that surprised me. Sigh.

Was hoping for Emilia Pérez to be in the list because believe it's a great innovative film and Jaques Audiard, one of my favorite contemporary directors deserve all the accolades for this movie. What I was not expecting is the list to contain a film by another of my favorite directors, Baltasar Kormákur with his film Touch that still have just because is his film.

Somehow knew The Seed of the Sacred Fig was going to be on the list and unfortunately the other non-English film with strong buzz All We Imagine as Light cannot make the list as another film was submitted by India. Other films expected to be on the list are I'm Still Here, Kneecap, The Girl with the Needle and Vermiglio. Wasn't sure if Flow would make it to this list as was hoping that film gets a nomination in the Animation category; still hope Flow gets a nomination in Animation category, as here there are too-many extremely good films competing for a spot in the nominations.

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