75th Venice International Film Festival Lineup

As was not easy to gather info about films countries submitted to Oscars 2019, decided to do the two missing posts about the 2018 Biennale as it's a lot easier to check info from only one source.  This is the lineup, the second will list the award winners.

Let's start by sharing that the festival poster was made by Lorenzo Mattotti. Mattotti says the following about his design, "I believe that a poster must have something intriguing about it, that attracts the eye, that attracts thought, but without revealing too much. It needs to have a sort of enigma, a sort of mystery to solve. After various attempts, I developed this idea of a girl of this female character – with a very graphic, unrealistic face – who looks with a rather serious expression through a lens. And instead of this lens, there’s Earth, planet Earth, symbolizing a gaze directed at us. Then there is a white square, and I believe that this combination is a successful match, because people wonder: what is that white square? I believe it is natural to think of it as a movie screen, the white screen. The gaze directed on the planet, directed on reality, must pass through this device, must be filtered through the screen".

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91st Academy Awards Foreign Language Film Submissions

First time since this blog started that I'm late with foreign language films submissions to 2019 Oscars but as some of you already know, traveled to another city in another country and another continent! So there where many changes and none benefit me paying necessary attention to the blog.

On top, by the end of the month I'm going to a new city again, but best news is my hope to have more time to do what I like most, thinking/talking about great cinema.  Will not skip doing the post that speaks about some of the best of World Cinema, but maybe will be slow to do all the task intensive work to find news and announcements from countries. Sigh.

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71th Festival de Cannes Award Winners

Watching red carpet, soon the top prizes of Cannes 2018.

Saturday May 19th Morning Update:  Un Certain Regard winners,  Queer Palm winners and more ...

Today AFP gives us the most interesting news as this year will be the first time in 71 years of the festival where those Cannes main awards that used to receive diplomas will receive a mini-palmes d'or!

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57th Semaine de la Critique Award Winners

Yesterday, the Cannes parallel section had their award ceremony with top award going to a Franco-Brazilian-Portuguese comedy drama.

Check winners below in GREEN and at official press release here.

Most interesting is the availability of 500 FREE tickets to watch the 2018 short films selection via Festival Scope.   Starting today, May 17th and until May 27th IF you hurry, will be able to watch the shorts; but act fast as there are only 500 tickets and yes, they're sold out quite quickly.  Festival Scope site is here.

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26th L'ACID Selection

The ACID program at the Cannes International Film Festival was created in 1993. Films are chosen by fifteen or so filmmakers, members of the association. It screens nine feature films, fiction and documentary, chosen among hundreds of works from all around the world.

ACID filmmakers follow their love for a film and wish to give visibility to directors whose work is scarcely distributed, in order to facilitate a theatrical release.

The screenings, open to professionals and also to the public are all followed by Q&As with the films' crews and ACID filmmakers who supported the films.

The films shown in Cannes are then accompanied by ACID and its filmmakers in the various stages of the theatrical release (search for distributors / promotion / programming / organization of the Q&A's / audience research).

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71st Festival de Cannes Official Selection - Update 1

As announced during the press conference of April 12th, today, April 19, organizers announced the films added to the composition of the Official Selection 2018.

There is some relief to my not positive feeling that this year there is an incredibly great official competition jury and there are not many great films for them to select winners from.  But now things can change a bit as, ladies and gentlemen, please notice that Nuri Bilge Ceylan is as of now in the competition to win the Palme d'or and perhaps has become the top contender along Jia Zhangke.  Well, at least their films have become must-be-seen for me no matter whatever happens in Cannes.

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#Cannes2018 Press Conference

Links to LIVE broadcast

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2018 Cannes Possible Films - The Buzz

As happens every single year, Cannes buzz starts during Berlinale and gets louder when Berlinale ends.  Even do been following the buzz since then this year haven't post anything as some of you guessed right, my life has changed and now it's not easy to keep on writing for you, loyal readers.  But no matter how many changes have happened or will occur, Cannes is Cannes for me and have to (or at least will try to) write my regular posts about the buzz, my wish list and all the other stuff done in the previous years.

No, this is not my Wish List but the usual compilation of possible films that could make it to Cannes which usually do in February but well, I'm doing it a month later and by now most industry publications have done their own lists, so it's not a novelty but will be a lot easier to make it, lol.

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43rd César Awards Winners

Last night the French Academy had their award ceremony and no, was not able to watch it live but as expected the big winner of the night was BPM as collected 6 awards but was followed very closely by See You Up There with 5.

What I really regret is not watching live the surprise appearance by Marion Cotillard to present along with Pedro Almodovar the Honorary César to Penelope Cruz, sigh.  Also, there are not many opportunities to see Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert and Marion Cotillard in one and the same event!!! But I'm watching videos and as soon as full awards ceremony video becomes available will include it in post.

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2018 Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild Awards Winners

A few days back the guild had their award ceremony and for the first time, the event red carpet was live-streamed from The Novo by Microsoft at L. A. and was hosted by Frankie Grande.  If you wish to check the red carpet event watch video at the end of post.

Frankie Grande also hosted the ceremony.  The night opened with a solo performance by him accompanied by pianist Jeremy Weinglass.

Winners are in *BLUE.  To check winners in all categories go official site here.  

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54th Cinema Audio Society Awards Winners

A few days back the society had their awards ceremony and according to twitter buzz, it was too-long as ceremony took over three and a half hours to present 7 awards and 4 honorary awards ... (LOL!). Just imagine presenting 23 or more awards using this ratio!

The top sound mixing award went to Dunkirk, a film that lost MPSE sound editing to Blade Runner 2049; so, perhaps Oscars will behave alike, with mixing to Dunkirk and editing to Blade Runner 2049.

Winners are in *BLUE.  To check winners in all categories go official site here.

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68th Berlin International Film Festival Award Winners

It's over we know all winners and there are some very-pleasant surprises. 

Spontaneously will share some perceptions, first the big Festival winners seems to be Brazil Cinema; Latin America also did really good but is Paraguay who conquers Berlinale 2018 with a film that obviously I'm "dying" to see (now more that know has to have the necessary quality).

Then, no doubt female directors did really well in this edition as hopefully is because they do great films; yes, seems that when festival programmers are "forced" to include female directors, great films, films that win top awards have not only accolades but a better-chance to be seen by audiences around the world.  Great.

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65th Annual MPSE Golden Reel Awards Winners

A few days back the group had their awards ceremony where Dunkirk and Blade Runner 2049 won top awards that could suggest could do good at Oscars category.  But the Oscar equivalent category for sound editing is Sound Editing Effects and Foley which was won by Blade Runner 2049 which makes film the favorite to win on March 4th.

"All of us who work creatively in sound are storytellers," MPSE president Tom McCarthy in his opening address. "We assist filmmakers, directors and producers in weaving soundtracks into visual presentations. We support the dialogue and emotion of stories. Tonight, we renew our yearly tradition of celebrating the art of sound in all areas of multi-media entertainment. We recognize the contributions of sound artists to features; television, cable and streaming programming; gaming; and multi-media—content that has reached audiences in every country, state, and community around the world."

Winners are in *BLUE.  To check winners in all categories go to official site go here.

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2018 BAFTA Awards Winners

A few days back BAFTA had their awards ceremony and followed the awards winners via twitter to later watch the TV broadcast with a ceremony that was a succession of awards presented by cinema personalities and was kind of boring with exception of the outstanding beginning with the Cirque du Soleil doing The Shape of Water inspired presentation.

Truth is that got interested in finding via twitter which film was winning what; but when became obvious that the big winner of the night was going to be 3B's completely lost me and my interest as do not particularly enjoyed that film.  Sigh.

Yes, the big winner of the night was Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri as collected five statues and most were top awards as Best Film, Best British Film, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Screenplay.  The Shape of Water had the most nominations but collected only three with only one top award, Best Director to Guillermo del Toro who becomes frontrunner/favorite to win same category Oscar.

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32nd Teddy Award Winners

Last night was the awards ceremony which was more likely a drag (?) show.  Perhaps I'm starting (lol) to get older but this type of show absolutely is not my cup-of-tea, much less the show by the group that won the documentary award.  Sigh.

Nevertheless I'm glad the ceremony was streamed live as it's easier to follow winners this way than only via twitter.

Regarding the winners it's interesting that FIPRESCI found the Paraguay movie the "best" in competition and this award jury gave film no honors, except becoming one of the three nominees, that assume means, finalists.  Brazil becomes the cinema country with more honors in this edition as wins top award and documentary award.

There was a new award given this year, Teddy Newcomer Award given to a first or second feature-lenght film with a queer subject matter.  Retablo by Alvaro Delgado Aparicio wins the first edition of this award.

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