74th Venice Film Festival Award Winners

Awards ceremony was average with most annoying moments when to Italian translations happened and nothing else was happening.

As a matter of fact some award winners had no idea of what to do while the translation was taking place.  Perhaps next time subtitles are use for translation or tell winners what to do, like for example, go to stage center and allow photographers to flash their cameras.

There was a moment that felt the awards were going very European, especially after parallel sections went Latin American; but was too early as after all big winner is Mexican and as he said, is the first time a Mexican director gets top award.  Congratulations to Guillermo del Toro!

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2017 International Film Critics' Week Award Winners

An Argentinean film wins section top award. To check jury comments go official site here.

Winners are in (*)BLUE.

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7/24/17
The Venice International Film Critics’ Week (SIC) is an independent and parallel section organized by the National Union of Italian Film Critics (SNCCI) during the 74th Venice International Film Festival (30th August – 9th September, 2017).

The program includes a selection of seven (7) debut films in competition and two special events out of competition, all presented in world premiere screenings. The selection is curated by the General Delegate of the Venice Critics’ Week Giona A. Nazzaro together with the members of the selection committee Luigi Abiusi, Alberto Anile, Beatrice Fiorentino and Massimo Tria.

The 2017 official selection includes:

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2017 Giornate degli Autori Award Winners

A Colombian film wins Biennale section top award. To read jury statement go official site here.

Winners are below in (*)BLUE.

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7/26/17
There is one quite big surprise this year as seems organizers retired the section English name to left only the Italian name.  In my opinion is for the best as the English name, Venice Days, had no relation to the Italian name nor what the section is all about; the literal translation from Italian to English is "Days of the Authors" which at least mention something related to this film director's competition.  Well, let's see if soon there is an official press release about the name, if they give an official English translation or they simply go on as nothing happened with the belief nobody notices.  Sigh.

This year, the fourteenth edition of the Giornate degli Autori is devoted to seeking out originality and diversity. Not to astonish, or provoke by riding the wave of easy titles, but to share the delight of discovery. Of celebrating difference. Of finding the ones who march to the beat of a different drummer.

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#EFA2017 People's Choice Awards

Every year, the EFA People’s Choice Award allows film fans across Europe to elect their favourite film. When the European Film Academy invites its members, Europe’s greatest film stars, directors, actors and actresses, to attend the European Film Awards, the People’s Choice Award sheds a spotlight on the people films are made for: the audience. This year’s vote has started – vote now and win the chance to join winners and nominees for the awards ceremony in Berlin!

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30th European Film Awards - Film Selection

A few days back the European Film Academy announced the Film Selection for the current edition of this European film award.  The list with fifty-one (51) films features fiction films recommended for a nomination for the 2017 EFA awards and has 31 European countries represented plus no doubt that once again illustrates the great diversity in European cinema.

In the 20 countries with the most EFA Members, these members have voted one national film directly into the selection list. To complete the list, a Selection Committee consisting of the EFA Board and invited experts Péter Bognár (Hungary), Dave Calhoun (UK), Giorgio Gosetti (Italy), Christophe Leparc (France), Jacob Neiendam (Denmark) and Alik Shpilyuk (Ukraine) has included further films.

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30th European Film Awards - Documentary Selection

Yesterday the European Film Academy released the documentary selection for the current edition of the annual awards.

The selection has fifteen (15) documentaries recommended for a nomination with ten (10) being recommended by documentary festivals chosen in co-operation with the European Documentary Network (EDN), these festivals are:

-IDFA (Netherlands)
-CPH:DOX (Denmark)
-Visions du Réel (Switzerland)
-DokLeipzig (Germany)
-Docslisboa (Portugal)
-Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival (Greece)
-Jihlava (Czech Republic)
-Cinéma du Réel (France)
-Krakow Film Festival (Poland)
-Sheffield Doc/Fest (UK)

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74th Venice International Film Festival Lineup

Today, August 7, 2017 organizers announce three (3) more films in the selection, one is out of competition, another is a special screening and the last one is a documentary in Venezia Classici section.

The two films are by well-known directors, first is the much-awaited return of John Woo to the crime thriller which made him famous and second, outstanding filmmaker Andrea Segre latest opus which hope has his peculiar storytelling style even when story is about immigration to Europe.

Just noticed la Biennale di Venezia changed its website, so have to find where is everything as not being able to find where is the Special Screenings or maybe the movie announced today is the only one (probably not).  While learn about the site will write the Andrea Segre film data in the following paragraph.

Special Screening: L'ordine delle Cose, Andrea Segre, Italy

To check the news at official site go here

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90th Academy Awards Foreign Language Films Submissions

8/5/17 Update - As expected, Switzerland became the first country to enter the Oscar race as film was announced yesterday at Locarno fest.

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8/3/17
Today is a good day to start my most favorite post of the year, the one about the films countries send to Oscars for their consideration.  Will start with some general news but in a few days we will learn the first film as since last year Switzerland announces its submission during the Locarno Film Festival, which started just yesterday.

As did last year, will link sources at my Pinterest; sources are in the original language so my best suggestion is to use Chrome for auto-translation.

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2017 Lux Prize Official Selection Update

Yesterday morning during the press conference presenting the Giornati degli Autori selection, the President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, announced the three (3) finalists films for the current edition of this award.

Seems the 2017 edition could be another year where everyone prediction will win as seems BPM has become a favorite among critic's and audiences, so perhaps will also be honored with more prestigious awards like this one.  Yes, Robin Campillo's Beats Per Minute is a finalist along with Amanda Kernell's Sami Blood and Valeska Grisebach's Western.

The three films in the Official Competition showcase the LUX Film Prize's desire to embrace an unpredictable variety of genre and tones like never before:

-Robin Campillo's third film follows a group of Act Up activists who fight to lend the AIDS problem more visibility in 1992 France and encourage faster progress to be made in terms of research and prevention.

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2017 Invitation to Join AMPAS

Yesterday the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced is extending 774 invitations to join the organization and because there are some people I was very positively impressed they were invited, as well as was utterly impressed Kristen Stewart is not a member as of this moment (!!!), I'm doing this post with comments and to list some of the people invited a couple of Academy Branches.

On the interesting side of AMPAS list there are 30 individuals that have been invited by multiple branches, but they have to select only one branch upon accepting membership.  Besides having to pay their financial dues, new members will be welcomed into the Academy at invitation-only receptions in the fall - meaning Oscar Season.

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70th Festival de Cannes Award Winners

Suddenly, Cannes is over. Once Again. Feel kind of sad.  Very glad there are great movies in this year edition that hope to see sooner than later.

Regret that jury didn't wanted to make history, didn't wanted to be remembered forever, didn't wanted to give for the very first time EVER the Palme d'Or to a two-time-winner director and make him the ONLY three-time winner. Sigh.

Instead they opted for a Swedish film in English by a great Swedish director debut in not-his-mother-tongue film.  The good news is that film could be good as not many directors have succeed when they do films in other languages; so, good for him (!) and also, for us -the audience.

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Closing Ceremony Live TV #Cannes2017

Today's Agenda - Sunday May 28th

06:00pm : Red carpet of closing ceremony
08:30pm : Press conference of the jury
09:30pm : Photocall of winners
09:45pm : Press conference of winners

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3rd L’Œil d’Or Award Winner

Will not deny that I'm very pleased with this edition of the documentary award as believe winner is undoubtedly the most interesting doc in the festival as surely has awesome visuals, definitively must be a great cinema experience and most of all, the idea behind film is truly outstanding, one that should be emulated (copied!) everywhere in the world, especially in smaller towns.

The Golden Eye (as is called in English) this year goes to Visages, Villages (Faces, Places) by Agnès Varda and JR.

The jury’s justification was the following: "Our jury has been deeply moved by Agnès and JR’s decision to meet local, so-called ‘little’ people, and our hearts have been touched by this movie-tale about consideration for the other through art. These combined perspectives are both delicate and generous."

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2017 Queer Palm Award Winners

As soon as read about Robin Campillo's film BPM (Beats Per Minute), knew was going to win this award as the award-worthy story was really compelling, emotional and relevant, even today.

Of course had no idea that film was going to be received so well, with film critics (crying) coming out of cinema teary-eyed and pouring so many positive reactions that film almost immediately became Palme d'Or favorite front-runner.

Film is a success story and more success will follow after the festival not matter if wins or not the top award.  Perhaps the only unfortunate element is that Pedro Almodovar is the jury president as there are some non-French-speaking critics suggesting that IF film wins top award is because of Pedro being the jury president (!!!???).

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7th Cannes Soundtrack Award Winners

Yesterday organizers announced award winner is the Composer of Good Time original score, Oneohtrix Point Never, working name of Daniel Lopatin.  Here is and excerpt from what Warp says about the award:

"Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) and Josh Safdie became close friends through a shared love of cult genre movies and music, and their level of collaboration here has a rare depth of symbiosis of picture and score. Mundane events become dramatic, montages become mini operas and Iggy Pop features on the poignant closer ‘The Pure And The Damned’."

Oneohtrix Point Never experimental electronica's original score was also part of movies like Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring and Ariel Kleiman's Partisan.

A Special Mention is given to composer Arnaud Rebotini for the soundtrack of 120 Battements par Minute by Robin Campillo, the film that many hope will win Cannes film festival and the one that has already collected several collateral awards.

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