82nd Venice International Film Festival Lineup

Today, July 22. A very long press conference with a cascade of films in the Biennale Cinema selection, as a matter of fact it was after an hour and 15 minutes that the competition was finally announced. The selection has not many "surprises" as most films were expected, especially in the main competition.

The best news are the inclusion of Mother by Teona Strugar Mitevska with Noomi Rapace playing Mother Teresa, not in #Venezia82 competition but in #Orizzonti2025 competition. Oh! Ozon's L'Etranger is in Competition!!! that's the most pleasant surprise as just a few days back discovered the film and even posted about it. Great! 

Kim Novack and Werner Herzog are being honored with a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, a decision made by the Board of Directors of La Biennale upon recommendation of the Artistic Director of the Festival, Alberto Barbera.

The actress and author Emanuela Fanelli will host the opening and closing nights of the Biennale Cinema.

On August 26th two Pre-Opening films, 1929 Queen Kelly by Erich von Stroheim with music performed by the Syntax Ensemble, film will be shown as world premiere in a new version restored incorporating newly discovered materiasls; and Origin, the Venetian Lagoon by Yann Arthus Bertrand, the famous French photographer, director and environmentalists.

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2019 Cannes Possible Films - The Buzz

As happens every single year, Cannes buzz starts during the Berlinale and gets louder when Berlinale ends.  But this year there are good news, buzz seems to be a lot more intersting than last year as there are some strong filmmakers with movies ready to be screen in competition, out of competition, any other fest section or parallel section.

Then we have to consider that after 2018 fiasco, smaller changes could make fest a lot more interesting and well, better.  No one will forget that thanks to French movie theaters owners, Netflix was banned and Roma was not accepted.  So, Roma went to La Biennale only to win the Golden Lion and the rest is history.  Much buzz (or is just plain gossip?) is going around about the discussions between festival organizers and Netflix but know problem is not Thierry Fremaux, who almost lost his job in 2017 due to this issue; problem is with the board of directors where there are a few movie theaters owners.  Soon we will see the end to current year discussions and hopefully, Neflix films are included in competition and elsewhere or the 2018 story will repeat and films will again end-up in Venice to their truly delight.

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10th Asian Film Awards Winners

Yesterday the Academy had their awards ceremony and as expected by many, Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin swept the night by winning eight awards out of the nine nominations it had, which is a fantastic ratio in any world awards.

But Hou Hsiao-Hsien film steak left not much for other films; still, among the few other awards left, Jia Zhang-ke collected Best Script for his Mountains May Depart.

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#Cannes 2016 News

As expected news have started to come drop by drop -very nice strategy to keep our attention- and yesterday we learned that none other that great Japanese filmmaker and one of my favorite contemporary directors, Naomi Kawase, is the President of The Cinéfondation and Short Films Jury for the 69th edition of the Festival de Cannes.

Assume that all of you, who read the blog regularly know who she is; but in case you're not familiar with her and wish to meet her, my best suggestion is to start with 2007 Mogari no Mori (The Mourning Forest), then go back to her previous films, continue with her recent films up to An (Sweet Bean), which perhaps is her more easy-to-watch by general audiences, as broke Japan's box office records. If I have to explain her style in a few words will be, simple everyday life moments told with full poetic storytelling and awesome visuals.

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2016 BAFTA Awards Winners

Watching stream of award ceremony here.  Will wait until show is over but yes, I have a violent depression because my favorite movie, Carol,  got 9 nominations and zero awards.... grrrr.  Why? When is such a beautiful movie in many ways... sigh.

Most noticeable is the absence of awards to another extraordinary film, The Danish Girl, which is quite surprising and have to comment that is disturbing to think that the LGBT stories had something to do with the absence of honors.  Sigh.

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9th Asia Pacific Screen Awards Winners

A few minutes ago the awards ceremony closed with the announcement of the big winner of the night and to my surprise the top award goes to Cementery of Splendour and NOT to what I was expecting, The Assassin. Sigh. Nevertheless I'm sure that Apichatpong Weerasethakul movie most be a dreamy trip into great cinematography and storytelling. Great.

Still considering the nominees, winners tend to be on the unexpected side as most not honored films have collected major awards in the festival circuit, which I believe only means that this year jury had bold or unconventional choices, sigh.

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52nd Golden Horse Awards Winners

Last Saturday night was the 2015 Golden Horse Awards ceremony and as expected the big winner of the night was Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin that collected five awards, including Best Feature Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography and more. Following closely was Chang Tso-Chi's Thanatos, Drunk with four awards.

Worth mentioning is Jia Zhang-ke's Mountains May Depart winning Best Original Screenplay and Tharlo by Pema Tseden winning Best Adapted Screenplay.

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#Oscars2016 Foreign-Language Submissions Facts

Current edition missed by 2 films the submission record established last year of 83 submissions; still, 81 submissions is a huge amount of cinema to be considered and distilled into a short list of 9 films. AMPAS foreign-language committee members have once again the annual hard and uphill task of watching films from many places in the world, some with high quality and others with not so-much-so quality.

From the 81 countries that submitted a film, only one, Paraguay, is a newcomer with it's first submission ever; all other 80 countries have submitted before. Most interesting is to consider that this year there are some submissions in languages that usually are not represented in the Oscars like, for example, Welsh in UK's submission, Warao in Venezuela's submission, Basque in Spain's submission, and Kaqchikel in Guatemala's submission.

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9th Asia Pacific Screen Awards Nominations

APSA Chairman Michael Hawkins today announced the nominations for the 9th Asia Pacific Screen Awards, the region’s highest accolade in film, in the Best Feature Film category and five craft award achievements.

Leading the nominations is Taiwan's The Assassin nominated for Best Feature Film, Achievement in Directing for Hou Hsiao-hsien and Achievement in Cinematography for APSA Academy member Mark Lee Ping-Bing. Competing alongside The Assassin for Best Feature Film are Thailand’s Cemetery of Splendour, Japanese drama Journey to the Shore and the Korean features End of Winter and Alive.

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88th Academy Awards Foreign Language Film Submissions

Today October 9 finally was able to finish the post and all other related media (trailers, poster, map, etc) so this post becomes FINAL. Post was moved so most links in other places will not work, just hope visitors will notice links in second column and above, sigh.

There are eighty-one (81) countries that submitted a film to #Oscars2016 which is two (2) films short of the record established last year when there were eighty-three (83) films. From all the announcements done by countries and/or film producers, there were two (2) that did not came in AMPAS list, China came with a different movie and Panama is out of the list. We already know about China's drama that captured the attention of industry media and social media and believe best lesson is to in future editions wait until an official source confirms submission and/or AMPAS list is published to include China's submission.

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Day 3 #Venezia72

Today Venezia72 has its first major Hollywood star walking the streets near the Lido and later -still early when I'm writing this- will walk the Red Carpet ... yes, I'm talking about Johnny Depp that already has large crowds outside the Black Mass photocall and press conference events.

But while watching the hundreds of Depp photos at those sites with not-free photos I came to realize something quite especial, tell me: who could imagine that relatively newcomer Dakota Johnson was going to have two (2) films in La Mostra? Plus both films have major cinema stars like Depp but also Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes. Intersting, isn't?

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2015 FIPRESCI Grand Prix Winner

Today FIPRESCI announced the annual Grand Prix - Best Film of the Year award winner and to my HUGE surprise Mad Max: Fury Road is the winner! Yes, my spontaneous initial reaction was tinted with the unexpected as never imagined that this movie could share honors with films by Michael Haneke, Paul Thomas Anderson, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and more.

But when the surprise settles down the George Miller's film appears as a movie that absolutely deserves the award as film has all the markers for well-traveling between great cinema and entertainment movie, which makes film quite outstanding indeed.

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72nd Venice Film Festival Lineup - Update 1

Two new titles complete the lineup of the festival that is directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by the Biennale chaired by Paolo Baratta.

The first is Tharlo by Tibetan director Pema Tseden in the Orizzonti section and the second is Out of Competition documentary I ricordi del fiune by Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio. Also today was announced the Orizzonti opening film and is none other than the film by Rodrigo Plá, Un Monstruo de Mil Cabezas (A Monster with a Thousand Heads).

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Venice Classics in Venezia72

Venice Classics is the section of the Venice Film Festival that since 2012 has presented, with growing success, a world premiere selection of restored classic films. The section brings back to light underestimated or neglected films of the past - restored over the past year by film archives, cultural institutions or production companies around the world. Venice Classics also presents a selection of documentaries about cinema and its auteurs.

For the first time at the Venice International Film Festival the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement has been given “carte blanche” to select some rare, forgotten or underestimated films for the Venice Classics section.

French cinema auteur (and dedicated film critic) Bertrand Tavernier – Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 72nd Venice Film Festival– will introduce to the public before the screening four masterpieces he has personally chosen as Guest Director of the Venice Classics section: Pattes blanches (White Pawns) by Jean Grémillon, La Lupa (The Vixen) by Alberto Lattuada, Sonnenstrahl (Ray of Sunshine) by Pál Fejös, and A Matter Of Life and Death by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

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68th Festival de Cannes Award Winners

And the BIG winner of the night is ... (drums) French cinema!!! Which is not a surprise as this year there is a huge list of what could be great French films and some made it to Cannes, some got great reviews and some won top awards.

But when you carefully look at the list below you can also find another winner, a cinema that had NO films in the main competition but managed to be present in several sections and ... (drums) won awards! I'm talking about Latin American cinema with movies from Colombia, Argentina and Chile. Then there was also a Mexican director winning a top award.

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Day 12 - Cannes 2015

As far as I remember this is the first time that the day of the closing ceremony ALL films in competition have a final screen that seems is open to all audiences. That's a great idea that hope will be a norm for the future.

Maybe will tweet live the winners but for sure will update LIVE the post with the list of award winners and of course will watch live the red carpet hoping to see who is really in Cannes and who is not.  So expect me complaining or being happy via twitter (lol).

Before getting into more news or comments, let's talk about yesterday Un Certain Regard awards ceremony that I deeply regret was not stream live (not even by Cannes TV or Canal +) as this year I would have liked to see it because Isabella Rossellini was the head of the jury and as expected seems she did a good speech before the awards. But today there is an official video with the ceremony; this is the English version video, but there is also a video in French that doesn't have the not-nice voice over translation.

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Day 11- Cannes 2015

The last day of the festival as tomorrow the only event is the closing ceremony. Today planes are full with the few cinema journalists that stayed to cover the last film in competition and the closing film.

Now we have the quest to find the people that have been called to return and those that never left, let the award winners guessing game begin!

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Day 9 - Cannes 2015

After today there are only three more films to go in the main competition; but more shocking, the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs and La Semaine de la Critique have their closing ceremony tomorrow, so believe it or not, tomorrow we will start to learn awards winners.

Oops! just realized that La Semaine de la Critique closing ceremony is TODAY!!! Oh gosh. Ceremony will be at 7pm local time.

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Day 1 - Cannes 2015

Today the biggest cinema party in the world begins with the opening ceremony followed by the screening of the out of competition opening film, La Tête Haute (Standing Still) by Emmanuelle Bercot, a film that has the milestone honor of being the second opening film in the history of the festival that is directed by a woman.

But the festival actually has begun with photocalls and press conferences. The main jury was presented at a press conference, they had their moment with the press at the photocall and to say truth, there are some very nice photos of some very photogenic jury members.

Maybe it was only today but there was NO live streaming of the photocalls or the press conferences. IF tomorrow happens the same then will be the first time in recent years that the fest doesn't live stream those events. Sigh. Let's hope tomorrow they go back to what entertains many -specially me. Still, the videos are available to watch, so we can watch the interview, photocall and press conference for the opening film and other activities that happened today.

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68th Festival de Cannes Official Selection Update 4

A few minutes ago organizers released the Screening Guide for all films in the official Selection. Go down to check the guide.

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5/5/15
Today the Camera d'Or jury was announced with Sabine Azéma as the jury president. The Caméra d’Or, created in 1978, is awarded to the best first film presented in the Official Selection (In Competition, Out of Competition and Un Certain Regard), during La Semaine de la Critique or the Directors’ Fortnight, which represents a total of 26 films in 2015.

She will be accompanied by the director Delphine Gleize, the actor Melvil Poupaud, Claude Garnier representing the AFC (French Association for Cinematographers), Didier Huck, representing the FICAM (Federation of Cinema, Audiovisual and Multimedia Industries), Yann Gonzalez, representing the SRF (Society of Film Directors) and Bernard Payen, representing the SFCC (French Union of Cinema Critique.

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