36th 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 two (2) 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, Paola Casella, Simone Emiliani and Roberto Manassero.

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.

The 2021 jury members for the main Competition are Claudio Cupellini, Vanja Kaludjercic and Sandrine Marques. Further more the films in competition are eligible for the following prizes: Verona Film Club Award, bestowed by a jury composed of the under-35 members of the Verona Film Club and awarded to the most innovative film in the section; and Mario Serandrei - Hotel Saturnia Award for Best Technical Contribution conferred by a committee of experts.

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74th Festival de Cannes Award Winners

Without a doubt, this was one of the best award ceremonies I have seen ever as made me laugh loud with a river of tears coming out of my eyes, (LOL). So funny!!!

Yes, Spike Lee announced the Palm d'or winner right away before any other major awards!!! Some how made me recall the infamous Oscar moment when Waren Beatty announced the wrong Best Picture; but, Cannes is France and gee, felt so funny instead of embarrasing. Even the mistress of ceremonies lost control afterwards making the show even more fun to watch. Wish awards ceremonies were more like this one that those boring shows reading one award after another.

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60th Semaine de la Critique Award Winners

Will not deny that having the festival during a summer month is kind of strange as on top, there are many cinema-related events going on at the same time due to the pandemia; so, it's not easy to concentrate on only one thing no matter how big or important that thing could be.  Nevertheless time flies and amazingly yesterday took place the first awards ceremony of the 2021 Cannes festival.

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2021 Queer Palm Selection

After a year of waiting, the Queer Palm, Cannes Film Festival LGBT+ award, is looking forward to celebrating its 10th anniversary next July on the Croisette. Created in 2010 by the French journalist Franck Finance-Madureira, the Queer Palm awards each year in Cannes a film dealing with LGBT+, queer or feminist themed movies among all the Cannes sections.

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60th Semaine de la Critique Selection

A few days back organizers announced via video on social media the Festival de Cannes parallel section that always has unconventional films to say the least. As this year waited a while the English version of this year events are all available; so, let's start with the graphic identity.

The Poster

As we recall, la Semaine de la Critique is dedicated to dicovering new talents and has been exploring filmmakers' work from around the world for 60 years. It conveys here both its passion for arthouse films and new kinds of genre films; and, focused on first and second features from the beginning, is always thirlled to enter directors' deliciously radical works.

On the poster of the 60th edition of La Semaine de la Critique, It Follows, David Robert Mitchell's second feature film, presented at the 2014 edition This. picture by photographer François Fontaine is a tribute to the energy La Semaine de la Critique, as it is celebrating its 60th anniversary, puts into discovering short films and features alike, looking for the future of cinema.

Poster was cone with the collaboration of Les Bons Faiseurs agency and particurlarly shows the characters dashing towards their destiny. Genre films are full of parallel worlds that reflect their generation, playful yet unbelievably sharp harbingers of the times to come.

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2021 L'ACID Selection

A few days ago organizers announced the selection for 2021, but before listing them let's recall what this event is all about.

ACID (Association for the Distribution of Independent Cinema) is a film directors association that has been promoting the distribution of independent cinema in movie theaters since 1992.  Their founding principle: the support brought by filmmakers to other filmmakers, French or foreign.

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

The ACID program at Cannes International Film Festival was created in 1993. Films are chosen by fifteen or so filmmakers, members of the association.   The following are the filmmakers who chose the current selection.

Aurélia Barbet, Diane Sara Bouzgarrou, Michaël Dacheux, Philippe Fernandez, Jean-Louis Gonnet, Pascale Hannoyer, Thomas Jenkoe, Naruna Kaplan de Macedo, Ombline Ley, Nora Martirosyan, Jessé Miceli, Ina Seghezzi, Idir Serghine, Jean-Robert Vialle

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53rd Quinzaine des Réalisateurs Selection

Yesterday Paolo Moretti, artistic director, and his selection committee unveiled the selection of Directors' Fortnight's 2021 edition with 24 feature films, 1 special screening, 9 short films and 1 feature by 2021 Carrosse d'Or filmmaker.

Before doing the list a few words about current edition poster. The image by photographer and filmmaker Daniel Mercadante, is part of his series "The Enchanted Forest" and was created through a process that combines long exposure photography, light projection and juxtaposition. The artist "paints" the trees with coloured light of handheld flashlights and using long exposure techniques, explores the temporal dimension that photography shares with cinema. The wide spectrum of colours reflects the richness and diversity of contemporary cinema which is, once again, the heart of the Director's selection.

Very well-known documentarian Frederick Wiseman will be given the 2021 Carrosse d'Or handed out by the French Directors' Association (SRF) at the opening ceremony ot the Quinzaine. Intended to reward a filmmaker chosen for pioneering qualities of their films, their boldness, and the rigor of their direction and production, the Carrosse d'Or was first handed out in 2002 to Jaques Rozier and since then many master filmmakers were honored with this recognition.

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74th Festival de Cannes Official Selection

Update June 30, 2021: Added Camera d'Or jury and link to all first features in competition.

The awards ceremony schedules starts on Thursday, July 15 when Cinéfondation awards will be announced; then on Friday, July 16 is Un Certain Regards ceremony and festival closing ceremony on Saturday, July 17.

Update June 25, 2021: Main Competition Jury has been announced as well as restored films and cinema related documentaries in Cannes Classics.

Update June 23, 2021: A few days back organizers announced a festival section called Cinema for the Climate that will screen one scripted film and six documentaries; two journesy of activism for the youth, two tales of catastrophe, news from Africa and an expeditio to the farthest reaches of the world.

Second guest of honor for current edition, after Jodie Foster attending the Opening Ceremony, is none other than Marco Bellocchio who will present his new feature film in the Cannes Premiere section and during the Closing Ceremony on Saturday, July 17 will receive an Honorary Palm d'Or as a tribute to his unique oeuvre that has marked contemporary cinema with force and freedom.  His documentary Marx Can Wait has been added to list below.

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71st Berlin International Film Festival Award Winners Final

Update June 21, 2021: Audience Awards were the last prizes to be announced. Berlinale 2021 is over see you next year for Berlinale 2022. Auf Wiedersehen!

Update May 27, 2021: Generation Awards, prizes from the Younger Audience jurors.

As was very clear stated the festival this year will have two dates, first for industry during March and second for audiences in summer time. What was unexpected was that industry event included film press watching films and publishing reviews; but, most of all, awards were given to films! At least, some awards and that's when my confusion started to become chaotic.

With time some clarity came and now believe I understand better what's going on. For starters this post will be In Progress until after the summer event when awards not listed below will be given, like for example Panorama section awards, Teddy Awards, etc.

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35th Teddy Awards Lineup

May 30, 2021 Update: some films have been eliminated from the selection and today post is updated to final selection.

Most interesting news come from the TEDDY Foundation as will present the Special Teddy Award for outstanding achievement and long-term service to Jenni Olson, a figure from the creative industries whose work has made an exceptional contribution to a wide-scale public perception and reception of queer perspectives in art, culture and media. For more than a decade I have been following the work of Jenni Olson and believe if someone deserves recognition for his unparallel body of work is her as an outstanding film curator, archivist, filmmaker, writer and LGBT film historian. Congrats.

The Teddy Jury 2021 was also announced with three filmmakers and festival organizers.
Sylvie Cachinis, film director, Switzerland
Samuel Girma, curator of film and art, Sweden
Esma Akyelis, transfeminist activist, festival organizer, Turkey

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71st Berlin Film Festival Lineup

Still missing past fest director Dieter Kosslick's black humor.  Maybe all the lockdowns doesn't facilitate new directors couple to shine as they should but 2021 could be their moment. Sigh.

Festival will run in two stages; first, the Industry Event from March 1 to 5, 2021 and second, the Summer Special from June 9 to 20, 2021. It's in the Summer Special when Berllinale audiences will be able to see the majority of the films selected by all the sections.

Worth mentioning that Berlinale Talents offers a host of familiar events featuring top-class guests, which can be attended virtually between March 1 to 5, live and cost free.

The Berlinale being one of the first festivals in the year, this line-up is mainly made up of films that either during the shooting or editing and post-production have endured the pandemic.

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#Oscars2021 International Feature Film Shortlist

Yesterday, February 9, 2021 as promised AMPAS released on time the infamous shortlists for several Oscars categories. Must admit had fun with all silly memmes from those waiting all day for the announcement and the Academy taking its time, they even released a "sarcastic" meme with Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. Playing time for the academics, isn't nice. Well, the result is that for me and so many others from around the world it was February 10 and yes, I was still awake waiting to see if certain movie and certain short film made it to the list. Good news: they did!!! So, went to sleep and woke up late. Sigh, too-much info!

Know is not the post category name BUT will share the good news, Pedro Almodovar's The Human Voice made it to the Live Action Short Film shortlist! Bravo!

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2020 Film Critics Awards

Been wondering if this post makes sense when everything about film awards is so upside down when what critics are reviewing will not be seen by audiences in theaters and what film critics do not like to review, mainly anything streaming, is what for the first time EVER audiences are watching not in the thousands but in the millions.  So, I'm afraid critics will honor with their awards films that we have no -or very little- idea of its existence.

But trying to make something positive out of all the sea of negativity, here is the post that will be a work in progress until the last critics group announces their winners which usually happens by early February but now probably will be early April as some groups seems decided to follow the Oscars schedule instead of the regular calendar year.

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77th Venice Film Festival Award Winners

Most talk about what many agree,  festival deserves big kudos for daring to gather people in cinemas and events like press conferences and hopefully Not spreading the virus ... sigh. But when considering cinema only, undoubtedly was a "strange" festival as yes, in a regular year many of those participating in official and collateral sections would not have had the chance at all. As a consequence there where actors on Venice that are well-known for their B-movies rather that for great cinema participation. Sigh.

But well, these are special times and most of all, uncertain times so let's be positive and congratulate organizers for this festival and let's hope that next year festival will go back more to be what it deserves to be.

Post will be in progress until after tonight's Awards Ceremony at 7:00pm local time.

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93rd Academy Awards International Feature Film Submissions

Update: January 29th, 2021. Finally AMPAS released the much-awaited official list and to my surprise was not the list of accepted films but is the list of submitted films. As a matter of fact now AMPAS calls it "films that are eligible for consideration"; so, we can assume that indeed is the list of accepted films. Sigh.

There are ninety-three (93) eligible films being considered for the International Feature Film category and yes, those 93 countries/films are the same as the list that leaked a few weeks later. It's a milestone as establishes a new submissions record as previous one was 92 entries in 2018. Not bad for a year where everyone was expecting very low film related activity; but, as I suspected, 2020 entries were going to be high and will be next year when probably submissions could go to an unexpected low.

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