86th Academy Awards Documentary Shortlist

From the one hundred forty-seven films that originally qualified in the category, fifteen (15) will advance in the voting process in which Documentary Branch members will select the five nominees.

Have seen only two, excellent Sarah Polley's opus Stories We Tell and a documentary that mesmerized me because I could not believe what I was seeing and hearing while impressing me as there is nothing shown but you intensively feel all the horrors, Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing. There are too many American documentaries for my taste but was good news to discover that Lucy Walker has a new documentary which perhaps will see even if know that the story is VERY different to her previous work, and unfortunately there is not much more that calls my attention but believe that the two mentioned above have high possibilities to be nominated and maybe one will win.

The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer, Anonymous and Christine Cynn, Denmark, Norway and UK

A documentary that challenges former Indonesian death squad leaders to reenact their real-life mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers.

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2013 The Independent Film Awards

Post will list the WINNERS only for the three Independent Awards in USA and UK. So will be a work in progress until the last organization announces their winners in March 2014.

23rd Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards Winners
Nominations at Official Site
Best Feature: Inside LLewyn Davis
Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award: Ryan Coogler for Frutivale Station
Best Actress: Brie Larson in Short Term 12
Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club
Breakthrough Actor: Michael B. Jordan in Frutivale Station
Best Documentary: The Act of Killing
Audience Award: Jake Shimabujuro: Life on Four Strings

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2013 Film Critics' Awards

As I really enjoy when I guess right almost all Oscar winners and knowing that guessing is done best by following awards buzz and not considering how good movies are, then this year have to do again the critics' post and today is a good day to start post that will be a work in progress until the last group announces their winner which happens around late January 2014.

Most critics' groups are American but you will also find groups in Canada, Ireland and UK. As in previous years' posts will publish link to read all winners and will list winners in the following categories: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor and Best Documentary. Before the list and to have ALL in one post first is the summary for the major film critics' groups.

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86th Academy Awards Live Action Shorts Shortlist

From 120 films that originally qualified in the category here are the 10 that advance in the voting process for an opportunity to get a nomination.

The Short Films and Feature Animation Branch Reviewing Committee viewed all the eligible entries for the preliminary round of voting at screenings held in Los Angeles. Short Films and Feature Animation Branch members will now select three to five nominees from among the 10 titles on the shortlist. Branch screenings will be held in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco in December.

Only one really calls my attention for the images, Helium but know story will be hard to see; perhaps worth watching are the shorts from Canada and UK.

The 86th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 16, 2014, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Shorts in alphabetical order.

Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn't Me), Esteban Crespo, Spain,23 minutes

The short film tells the story of Paula y Kaney, two characters -an African child and a Spanish woman- who don´t have anything in common, but who will unite their lives due to a gunshot. Kaney is a child soldier from an African country. Along with many other children, he obeys a man´s order that has become a father, the General of the Rebel Army. Paula (Alejandra Lorente) is a Spanish volunteer worker who goes to Africa with his boyfriend, Juanjo (Gustavo Salmerón) with the goal of helping and rescuing the child soldier who live there. At a border post Paula and Kaney meet for the first time and that is the starting point of this dramatic story, in a fear, violence, terror and redemption scenario.

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7th Asia Pacific Screen Awards Nominations

Yesterday Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk announce the nominees for this year APSA's with 39 films from 21 Asia Pacific countries and areas vying for the region's highest accolade in film; for the first time nominations have gone to films from Bangladesh, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Omar by Hany Abu-Assad received the most nominations with a total of three followed by Like Father, Like Son, The Old Man, My Sweet Pepperland, Television and The Past with two each.

Best Feature Film
Oba Nathuwa Oba Ekka (With You, Without You), Prasanna Vithanage, Sri Lanka
Omar, Hany Abu-Assad, Palestine
Le Passé (The Past), Asghar Farhadi, France and Italy
Soshite chichi ni naru (Like Father, Like Son), Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan
Television, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, Bangladesh
The Turning, Australia (Anthology with 18 directors of 18 shorts)

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26th European Film Awards Nominations

A few minutes ago at the Seville European Film Festival the European Film Academy announced the nominations for this year. Most were expected and for me this year there is no big surprises among the nominees, unless you consider movies that I did not enjoyed and got nominations in categories that truly are not deserved, sigh.

Excellent The Broken Circle Breakdown by Felix van Groeningen leads with five (5) nominations followed by awesome, opulent and truly decadent La Grande Bellezza by Paolo Sorrentino with four nods (including one for great Toni Servillo, whom already won in my awards).

Please remember that the award calendar runs from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013 and is the reason why the nominations have films from last year. Also, the films must have a director who was born in Europe or has a European passport and Europe has a geographical definition. The more than 2,900 EFA Members will now vote for the winners who will be presented during the awards ceremony on 7 December in Berlin.

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86th Academy Awards Animated Shorts Shortlist

A few days ago the Academy announced that from the fifty-six (56) films that qualified, ten (10) Animated Shorts will advance in the voting process.

After watching all available materials my first impression is that Feral and Mr. Hublot are the ones that absolutely call my attention for the story and the execution.

The following are the shortlisted films.

Feral, Daniel Sousa, director, and Dan Golden, music and sound design (Daniel Sousa), USA, 13 minutes
A wild boy is found in the woods by a solitary hunter and brought back to civilization. Alienated by a strange new environment, the boy tries to adapt by using the same strategies that kept him safe in the forest.

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86th Academy Awards Foreign Language Film Submissions - Final

Yesterday the Academy published the final list and well, was a great surprise to find seventy-six (76) submissions to the foreign-language category which is a new record that believe will be hard to surpass. Nevertheless all three movies I was supposed to add yesterday are in list plus 2 more, one from Chad and another from Azerbaijan. No matter what category pundits say, it is a great honor for a film to be designed as the nation representative in the most popular/famous awards in the world and my wish is that awards TV show producers realize that a few extra minutes for the category will mean "something" to the millions that watch the show outside USA.

There are some significant changes from what was announced and what is in final AMPAS list. The first and most significant is Czech Republic submission is NO longer Agnieszka Holland's mini-series and has been substituted with a film by Jiri Menzel. The other is the film from Lebanon which is now by director Lara Saba. Post with female directors will be fixed by eliminating film from Czech Republic and adding film from Lebanon. Last I'm a bit surprised that the Swiss submission was accepted as had the impression that there was too much English but seems was just an impression.

The 86th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 16, 2014, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2013 will be presented on Oscar Sunday, March 2, 2014, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center and televised live on the ABC Television Network.

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86th Academy Awards Foreign Language Film Submissions - Meet the Female Directors

October 12, 2013

The Academy published the list with 76 films that qualified to be considered for the foreign-language category and there are seventeen (17) female directors as even when one film by a film director was disqualified (Czech Republic) another film by a female director qualified (Lebanon). But as there are a record 76 submitted films, the proportion of female versus male directors goes down to 22% which is slightly lower than what usually goes on in most international cinema related events.

October 2, 2013
One day after the deadline we know that sixty-eight (68) films were announced as submission from a specific nation or territory; we still do not know if all films are going to be accepted but while we wait for the official AMPAS announcement let's review some relevant data. For starters there are seventeen (17) female directors that directed or co directed films that were submitted which "surprisingly" reflects the same proportion male-female from many festivals and cinema related events as 25% is about the ongoing average ratio.

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26th European Film Awards - Long List

As the European Film Academy just announced in Berlin, there are 46 films in this year’s EFA Selection, the list of films recommended for a nomination for the European Film Awards 2013. With 32 countries represented, from Austria to United Kingdom, the list once again illustrates the great diversity in European cinema. The selected films also cover a wide range of genres and themes from comedies to family, political and historical dramas, from thrillers to literature and theatre adaptations.

In the coming weeks, the 2,900 members of the European Film Academy will vote for the nominations in the categories European Film, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenwriter. The nominations will then be announced on 9 November at the Seville European Film Festival in Spain. A 7-member jury will decide on the awards recipients in the categories European Cinematographer, Editor, Production Designer, Costume Designer, Composer and Sound Designer.

The 26th European Film Awards with the presentation of the winners will take place in Berlin on 7 December.

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70th Venice International Film Festival Award Winners

The post has become final and if you wish to read the top awards at the official site please go here while most of the other awards can be found here.

Was not able to watch live the closing ceremony which is annoying as did see the opening ceremony but perhaps what called my attention are the many twitter comments about the low press coverage of the awards which indeed suggests that this year fest was less "interesting" than let's say, last year. If you consider what I just commented then is NO Big surprise that top award went to a documentary, an Italian documentary. Still there are a couple of films that definitively are great must be seen for me: Philomena and Via Castellana Bandiera. Great.

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7th Queer Lion Lineup and Winner

A few minutes ago the winner was announced and to my surprise this year Queer Lion winner is a film that I'm really looking forward to watch, which is highly unusual!

... and the winner is:

Philomena, Stephen Frears, UK, USA and France (G)

The jury, headed by Angelo Acerbi and composed by Queer Lion founder Daniel N. Casagrande and Marco Busato, general delegate of cultural association CinemArte, unanimously awarded the prize "For the ability of giving proper relevance to issues such as homosexuality, AIDS and homophobia in a movie focused on the painful topic of a 50 years long search for a son, and for emphasizing, with the light touch of a comedy, how an humble woman with a deep Catholic faith can show outright and loving acceptance for the essential, important aspects of the sexual identity and same-sex family of a 'just re-discovered' son."

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2013 European Film Awards - People's Choice Award

This year the 26th European Film Awards will go back to Berlin and will take place on December 7th. The most interesting and often must be watch longlist of European films is scheduled to be unveiled in "the beginning of September" so I assume that will be soon.

As always the nominations will be announced on November 9th at the Seville European Film Festival. This is the schedule for the coming months but today the list of nominated films for the People's Choice Award was announced and there are some great films in it, still I'm totally biased towards Searching for Sugar Man a doc that absolutely gets my vote, yay!

IF you vote you will get a chance to win a trip to the awards in Berlin. Good Luck!

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40th Telluride Film Festival

Yesterday organizers unveiled the "secret" lineup and as always lineup is a nice collection of world films with most films coming from Cannes, but also from Berlinale and La Mostra. Enjoy!

2013 Lux Prize Finalists

From the ten films chosen to become the 2013 Official Selection that were announced during the 2013 Karlovy Vary fest, three films continue as finalists for the award that will be announced during a formal sitting of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on December 11th. The three films were recently announced and will be screened during Venice fest in the Venice Days (Giornate degli Autori) section.

For the first time a British film has been shortlisted and it is the second time an Italian director is running for the award which is none other than Valeria Golino's directorial debut.

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