73rd Berlin International Film Festival Award Winners

As loyal readers have noticed I haven't post much during current  award season and the reason-why  is because have to take care of an ill very close family member. Still, have tried to retweet most of the relevant film related news that havebeen reading.

As Berlinale is one of the three main film festivals in the world and consequently, great films undoubtedly will win awards to call audience attention -and mine- thus most will become must-be-seen in the following year. So, will do the very-long award winners post.

Worth mention that found festival to be slow, not many films got audiences and critics positive attention -nor mine-; so, perhaps juries and their prizes will generate more buzz around award winning films. Let's see what happens in a few hours, when the closing ceremony will take place.

Post was In Progress until after the closing ceremony tonight.

As many comment Berlinale 2023 gave us cinema lovers an interesting and quite unexpected group of winners, many -almost all- must be seen for me. That's quite surprising as many film pundits were expressing not positive feelings about the Jury President and the too-many female jury members (!!!). Then I was flabbergasted with the many tweets expresing high praise to the speeches of the Jury President! Gosh what did they expected from a jury president? Alright to be fair my Kristen Stewart expectations were high and all were met beyond what I could imagine; so, those film critics, film commentators and/or film bloggers that do not appreciate Stewart were those that praised her most -and they mention their previous dislike.

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35th European Film Awards Nominations

As this year there are many great European movies being considered for an European Film Awards nomination decided to return to list EFA's nominations for 2022 awards edition.

The following awards had been already announced.

Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Body of Work to Margarethe Von Trotta
European Innovative Storytelling Award to Marco Bellocchio
European Achievement in World Cinema Award to Elia Suleiman

The Awards ceremony will take place on December 10, 2022 in Reykjavik, Iceland and will be streamed live at awards official site here.

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79th Venice Film Festival Award Winners

Know is not only my opinion but found festival to be low on good cinema and quite uneven in spectacle as started with a few days with big bang both in movies quality -which generated high press interest- to fade into a straight line with no highs nor lows. Somehow my opinion is confirmed with the awards as weren't as dispereced as in previous editions and tended to concentrate in a few films.

Most interesting for me is the amount of USA productions or co productions that won top awards which only confirms the tight festival relation with American cinema. Still -and I'm completely biased- I'm totally in agreement in honoring Cate Blanchett with her second Copa Volpi! No fan of Colin Farrell but will have to check film to find why he won over press and social media favorite Brendan Fraser.

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16th Queer Lion Award Lineup

Update August 22, 2022 - Seems all films in competition have been announced and even do organizers haven't announce any film out of competition, decided to publish post. If more films are announced post will be updated accordingly.

The Jury

The president of the jury is London-based journalist Rich Cline, originally from Los Angeles, he grew up in Ecuador and has lived in Britain for more than 30 years. Jury members are Daniel N. Casagrande, Marco Busato, Jani Kuštrin, and Adriano Virone.

To check films and read LGBTQ+ oriented synopsis go to official site here.

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8/8/22
Organizers started to announce, one film at time, films competing this year for the Queer Lion Award. When reading about films in all the sections of the festival I discover some with LGBTQ+ interest and those are listed below waiting for organizers to announce if films are or are not in consideration.

So, post will be in-progress until the last film is announced; decided to publish today and will update as soon as each film is revealed.

Films in RED are the ones officially announced.

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95th Academy Awards International Feature Film Submissions

Update 2 November 1st - Since yesterday several renown American movie online outlets, and many blogs and movie enthusiasts have been announcing additional countries with submissions to #Oscars2023 International Feature Film category. There are three countries, Australia, China and Azerbaijan with no official announcement from film academy, film commission, cultural ministry or any other official film institution in each country. Data source seems to be lists sent to International Feature Film committee members in the first voting that will generate the list of 15 films that's scheduled to be announced on December 21.

Trully regret AMPAS chose not to release the official list of films that have qualified to be considered by the committee as only generates lots of confusion and speculation. Hope The Academy releases an official list of eligible film soon to clarify what's fact and what's fiction.

Most interesting is that Australia's entry is suppose to be one of my must-be-seen films as none other than Noomi Rapace plays the lead! On different news, it's claim that one (1) movie is absent from those lists, Malta's submission. So, for trying to keep the list as much reliable as I can will use the latest available info from industry's reliable sources as well as from other sources. I'm adding China, Australia, Azerbaijan and removing Malta.

Nevertheless, do remember below list is mainly the source of films that will increase my queue of must-be-seen movies, if I have not seen them already. Sigh.

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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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