95th Academy Awards International Feature Film Submissions

This year Ireland became the very first country to announce their Oscars entry to the 2023 edition of the Academy Awards. So, it's in August that we start the post even when since July been looking almost daily for info about this yearly post that really enjoy doing as gives me the panoramic of the films I'll be looking to forward to watch as soon as possible.

As mentioned there are many news from countries calling for producers to submit their films for consideration by local AMPAS approved Oscars selection committee and many have scheduled their procedure. At post end all press announcements will be listed with their respective schedule and will updated as soon as other countries announce their choices.

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19th Giornate degli Autori Lineup

The 19th edition of Giornate degli Autori, headed by President Andrea Purgatori, working alongside the Board of Directors, General Delegate Giorgio Gosetti, and Artistic Director Gaia Furrer, will run from August 31st to September 10th, during the 79th Venice Film Festival.

Founded in 2004, the brainchild of Francesco Maselli and Emidio Greco, Giornate degli Autori is promoted by ANAC and 100autori and made possible by the unwavering support of the MIC’s General Directorate for Cinema and the joint efforts of partners such as Miu Miu, SIAE, BNL, the European Parliament’s Lux Audience Award, and the streaming platform MUBI.

Independent sidebar organized in concert with the Venice Biennale, Giornate 2022 once again presents 10 films in the running for the GdA Director’s Award, in addition to the closing film and five special events which are also world premieres. The Official Selection features 19 countries, 6 women directors and 5 first films. Nine titles are on the lineup for Venetian Nights, the alternative showcase of auteur Italian films that is co-organized with Isola Edipo at the Sala Laguna.

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79th Venice International Film Festival Lineup

Official Press Conference took place Tuesday, July 26th, 2022 at 11:00 am local time and my spontaneous first impression is ... this year there are quite an array of interesting films and perhaps the films in competition as a whole represent one of the best film selections in several years, at least more than 10 years. But as I learn more about each movie perhaps my initial emotion will lower my expectations because after all, this is Venice fest and always has too-much USA cinema for my taste, sigh.

Rocío Muñoz Morales is the host of the Opening and Closing ceremonies. She will open the festival on the evening of Wednesday, August 31st, 2022 on Sala Grande in Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido, and will host the closing ceremony on Saturday, September 10th when the winners of the Lions and other official prizes will be announced.

The Poster

The official poster as well as the opening sequence for current edition are by Italian illustrator and artist Lorenzo Mattotti. Is the fifth consecutive year as the author of the image of the official poster and for the fourth year, of the opening sequence for the fest.

The image chosen for the poster depicts, according to Mattotti, "a Lioness glliding through the air offering us this anniversary -the 90th." As we know, it has been 90 years since the first Venice International Film Festival and for this reason they wanted the image to be classical in style, just as the choice of a gold background was equally classical. The colour gold is also a reference to the posters of the early decades of the twentieth century. The Venice International Film Festival has always been classical, but provocative as well. Here the Lion, symbol of power and strength, has been transformed into a Lioness who embodies elegance and creativity. After 90 years, the Lion of Venice, symbol of the Film Festival, has become a Lioness who flies through history with grace and energy, as a symbol of hope, a rejection of aggression and ferocity”.

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37th Venice International Film Critics' Week Lineup

La Settimana Internationale della Critica is an independent and parallel section organized by the National Union of Italian Film Critics (SNCCI) during the Venice International Film Festival. The program includes a selection of seven (7) debut films in competition and the (3) special events out of competition, all presented as world premieres.

The selection was curated by the General Delegate of Venice Critics' Week Beatrice Florentino together with the members of the selection committee: Enrico Azzano, Chiara Borroni, Ilaria Feole and Federico Pedroni.

There are several prizes for feature and short films in La Settimana but most important is the fact that the seven feature films also compete for Lion of the Future - Luigi De Laurentiis Venice Award for a debut film.

Before getting into the list there are several worth-mention issues.

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75th Festival de Cannes Award Winners

Even before yesterday's Semaine de la Critique award winners announcement there were quite a few award winners announcements; so, today Thursday, May 26 decided to start this post that will be in progress until Saturday when the festival awards ceremony will take place. Unfortunately with the change from Canal+ to FranceTV it's not possible to watch live the ceremony, as happened with the opening ceremony; unless, someone decides to "open" live stream to the whole world of cinephiles that enjoy watching live the winners. Anyway social media will also allow to learn winnes as they are announced, sigh.

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61st Semaine de la Critique Award Winners

The jury lead by Kaouther Ben Hania announced yesterday the winners of the 61st edition of the Cannes parallels section Critics' Week and top award went to Colombia and French production La Jauría by Andrés Ramírez Pulido a film that also was honored with the SACD Award.

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2022 Queer Palm Selection

The Queer Palm is the Cannes Film Festival queer, gay, lesbian, bi, trans, queer, and more (LGBTQ+) award. Every year, a jury, including journalists, non-profit organizations members or artists, rewards one film listed in one of the following Cannes Film Festival selections : The Official Selection (in and out of Competition, Cannes Premiere, Special Screenings, and Midnight Screenings), Un Certain Regard, The International Critics’ Week, the Directors’ Fortnight, The ACID’s (independent films) selection. The Jury considers a film’s artistic, LGBTQ+ and gender-related topics qualities in order to award this film.

This year the president of the Jury is none other than the director of La Fracture, the 2021 Queer Palm winner: Catherine Corsini, one of my favorite directors and yes, have seen almost all her fabulous films and especially enjoyed her whimsical lesbian interest films.

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2022 La Fabrique Cinéma Selection

Once again go back to this event that also happens during the Cannes Film Festival and first of all, let's refresh our memories with some info about it.

La Fabrique Cinéma has been created by the Institut français, in partnership with France Médias Monde, the SACEM (French society of authors, composers and publishers of music) and the International Organisation of La Francophonie to support new talented filmmakers from Southern and emerging countries.

This program has been developed in close association with the Festival de Cannes and the Marché du Film. Ten projects in development (1st or 2nd feature film) are selected and invited to Cannes. The aim is to create concrete opportunities for these projects by providing access to different activities and personalized support through one-to-one and group meetings with key players in the film industry.

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2022 L'ACID Selection

A few days ago organizers announced the selection for 2022 but, before listing them, let's recall what event is all about.

ACID (Association for the Distribution of Independent Cinema) is an association of film directors which, since 1992, has been promoting the cinema distribution of independent films and encouraging debates between authors and audiences. The strength of the solidarity chain it has built for the last 28 years lies on its founding principle: the support given by filmmakers to other filmmakers, French or international.

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.

Fifteen filmmakers selected nine (9) films among the many they saw and among them, there are five (5) that are first feature films and as always, films without distribution -including fiction and documentaries- were prioritized. The following are the fifteen filmmakers that chose the 2022 selection:

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61st Semaine de la Critique Selection

A few days back organizers announced via video on social media the Festival de Cannes parallel section lineup which always has unconventional films to say the least. Let's start with the graphic identity.

The Poster

From the section website: "On the poster of the current edition the characters of Chloé Mazlo’s film Skies of Lebanon are projected onto a body by the photographer Charlotte Abramow - something between a laterna magica and the good genie of Arabian Nights. Blending these two poetic, joyful worlds is a tribute to cinema, a love letter to filmmakers, to its audiences who find themselves spellbound, moved, surprised, puzzled, or unsettled… to all the believers who have it in their bones.

On a starry night, La Semaine de la Critique takes you on the wonderful adventure of first films, a journey of emotions and sensations. As the lights fade, the feature and short films that Ava Cahen, Artistic Director and her selection committees have traveled to world to unearth, will be revealed to you in this new edition dedicated to discoveries."

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54rd Quinzaine des Réalisateurs Selection

Today, Tuesday April 19, the selection committee lead by Paolo Moretti announced the line-up for 2022 edition. Worth mentioning that Moretti will step down at the end of the 2022 edition and the new artistic director will assume her/his duties in November 2023 to prepare for the 2023 edition.

2022 Directors' Fortnight is dedicated by the SRF to Lituanian director Mantas Kvedaravicius, killed in Ukraine, to his colleague Oleg Sentsov currently fighting in the front line and to all artists forced to make war rather than films.

The 54th edition will run from May 18 to 24 and today unveiled their program with 23 feature films, due to technical issues one Asian film still pending to be announced, with a strong European presence, 17 filmmakers, and even stronger presence of French films (9) that include films by the likes of Mia Hansen-Løve, Alice Winocour, Léa Mysius, Philippe Faucon and more. Most interesting is the non-European presence of first feature films, remember these films compete for the Camera d'Or, by directors from South America (Chile and Colombia), Tunisia (2), and Lebanon (1).

If we include the previously announced opening film plus the one pending to be announced, there will be twenty-five (25) films in this edition.  From those already announced there are 10 films by female filmmakers, one is a co-directing with another female director and another with a male director.

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75th Festival de Cannes Line Up

Update May 11th, with only six (6) days to the opening day post has been updated with several news. Most interesting are the Honorary Palme d'or to Forest Whitaker, some extraordinary films in Cannes Classics section plus more movies in the Cinéma de la Plage section.

Post will be kept In Progress as official site hasn't upload any info regarding the many films in current edition; consequently, will become final when organizers release info and after list is check to confirm films, add and/or correct info.

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72nd Berlin International Film Festival Award Winners

Festival opening ceremony was not much entertaining and even do definitively I'm biased towards what Cannes does, official remarks, fun/light entertainment, film clips and juries presentation, this year Berlinale had too-much industry remarks addressed to industry and audiences. The later needs to go back to cinema, we got that; but, certainly audiences will do considering new terms as they already tasted what is to have options in time-free, device-free and clothes-optional stay-at-home comfortably film watching. Sigh.

Very glad closing ceremony went directly to the awards with no time-consuming speeches and most of all was very-thankful to festival for negotiating the rights to show clips from winning films (lol) as yes, finally international audiences could watch film clips!!!

Usually closing ceremony is on Saturday but this year as organizers fought to have an in-person festival, the award ceremony was on Wednesday and today most awards have been announced with the exception of few that will be known on Friday.

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36th Teddy Award Lineup

Again this year a reduced events section for Teddy but awards ceremony will be live-streaming on February 18 starring at 9pm Germany time and yes, there will be an "online party" starring at 11pm (!). But there will be other live events like the jury reception online or a panel on experimenting and evolving plus more events that will be streamed online.

The TEDDY AWARD will accompany the 72nd Berlinale on the TEDDY AWARD platforms with talks, discussions, panels and interviews on current queer films and the most burning issues and developments in the queer media industry. The film market events Queer Industry Reception and Speedy Film Pitches will take place online in the form of interacting and networking queer media professionals.

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72nd Berlin Film Festival Lineup

As of this moment, February 1st, post has become final as all available info was published at official site.

On February 1, 2022 organizers will give access to the public program of the festival and will list films by festival-section in the respective web-section of the festival. When lists become available will include link to each section of those without the films listed here. So, post remains In Progress until all necessary data is included.

As Carlo Chatrian said: "we have learned to live in a state of undefined uncertainty" and fortunately film festivals are finding new ways to face uncertainty which are (finally) changing too-old ways to do things in the worldwide film industry.

There are still many more changes that should be done for the industry to thrive when the new normal becomes a reality and we can only hope they happen fast. One of those changes will come when first industry accepts that streaming is here to stay; required acceptance is quite similar to television first days when everyone thought cinema will die and nothing further from those beliefs and not only television came to stay and cinema evolved as a consolidated in scale that goes from pure entertainment into a form of art.

Believe cinemas will not disappear but their weight in the industry will be less and less to stay in the place where it belongs since a long-time-ago. Nowadays audiences participation in the film cycle is becoming more and more important and finally is taking the place it deserves since a long time ago. Well, there is much to be done yet but film festivals should start to understand that now they can have GLOBAL audiences and there is always huge benefits when films are watched by huge audiences. Not saying ALL festival films should become available to world audiences but selected films should be. Most noticeable is the effort of Sundance Film Festival with their Experience Ticket open to WORLD audiences; it's a beginning even when worldwide audiences have access to more "obscure" sections of the festival.

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