75th Berlin International Film Festival LIne Up - In Progress

Note: This post will be In Progress until festival full program becomes available at official site, which seems is scheduled to February 4, 2025.

This year the festival will run from February 13 to February 23, 2025 and the Program Press Conference is scheduled to be held on January 21, 2025, at 11am at Haus der Kulturen der Welt. The Berlinale 2025 marks the 75th anniversary of the Berlin International Film Festival and is also the first edition under the direction of Tricia Tuttle.

Tricia Tuttle will open the Press Conference and give an overview of the entire festival program. She will then present the films in the Competition and the new competitive section Perspectives together with the Co-Directors of Film Programming Jacqueline Lyanga and Michael Stütz.

European Film Market

Under the new direction of Tanja Meissner, the European Film Market (EFM) 2025 will again open its doors from February 13 to 19, welcoming international industry representatives including producers, global sales agents and distributors as well as cinema operators, high-tech companies, and investors from all over the world.

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29th Annual Excellence in Production Design Awards

Yesterday, January 9, the Art Directors Guild announced the nominations for the 29th edition of their annual awards that excellence in production design across theatrical motion pictures, television, commercials, music videos, and animated feature films.

Established in 1937, the Art Directors Guild (ADG, IATSE Local 800) represents 3,300 members who work throughout the world in film, television and theater as: Production Designers and Art Directors; Scenic, Title and Graphic Artists; Set Designers and Model Makers; Illustrators and Matte Artists.

The 2025 Cinematic Imagery Award will be presented to Jason Reitman.  In addition, the ADG will honor Lisa Frazza, Barbara Mesney, Dan Sweetman, and J. Dennis Washington with Lifetime Achievement Awards. Legendary production designer Carl Jules Weyl will be inducted into the ADG Hall of Fame as part of the ceremony.

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31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards

Yesterday, January 8th, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) announced the nominations for the current edition of their annual awards that honor outstanding stunt, individual, cast and ensemble performances for the past year.

Voted on by SAG-AFTRA's membership of 122,000+ performers, the SAG Awards has the largest voting body on the awards circuit and a large number of them are also Academy voting members, therefore is a big crowd of Academy Awards voters that usually profile Oscar nominations and winner.

Wicked leads with 5 nominations followed by A Complete Unknown with 4 and Emilia Pérez and Anora with 3 nominations each.

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77th Annual Directors Guild of America Awards

Yesterday, January 8, the Directors Guild of America President Lesli Linka Glatter announced the five nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film for 2024 and the day before January 7, the guild announced the nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Television, Commercials and Documentary for 2024.

The best news for me is Jaques Audiard nomination for his remarkable Emilia Pérez a film that according to me, is as great as his A Prophet, which by-the-way Audiard didn't got a DGA nomination for; so, this is the first DGA nomination for Audiard, finally!

Most nominees were the ones the industry was expecting, except for James Mangold and most claim that instead of him, Denis Villeneuve or Coralie Fargeat deserved to be there. Whatever the reason to snub them, truth is that there is no female director nominated this year which in the last five year it only happened once in 2020, as in 2021 Chloe Zhao won the award, in 2022 was Jane Campion the winner and in 2023 Greta Gerwing was nominated.

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61st Cinema Audio Society Awards

Yesterday the Cinema Audio Society (CAS) announced its nominees in seven categories for the current year awards honoring Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing.

The CAS Award nominees highlight the outstanding contributions of sound mixers, recognizing excellence in the specialized craft of sound mixing for both film and television. Each year, accomplished CAS members—who possess extensive expertise in the art and science of sound—carefully review hundreds of projects to ensure the nominees truly reflect excellence in sound mixing in Motion Picture and Television entertainment.

The 61st CAS Awards will honor Outstanding Achievements in Sound Mixing in seven categories: Motion Pictures – Live Action, Motion Pictures – Animated, Motion Pictures – Documentary, Non-Theatrical Motion Pictures or Limited Series, Television Series – One Hour, Television Series – Half Hour and Television Non-Fiction, Variety or Music – Series or Specials. The CAS Student Recognition Award will also be presented.

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72nd Annual MPSE Golden Reel Awards Nominations

Yesterday the Motion Picture Sound Editors announced the nominations for the current year awards and Deadpool & Wolverine and Dune: Part Two led the way with 3 nominations each.  Among the movies with more than one nomination we find Oscar top contenders like A Complete Unknown, Emilia Pérez and Wicked.

Let's recall that nominees represent the work of the world's most talented sound artists and their contribution to the past year's most outstanding feature film, television, animation, and computer entertainment productions.

The MPSE Golden Reel Awards recognize outstanding achievement in sound editing in 24 categories encompassing feature films, television, animation, computer entertainment and student work; and covers the various areas of sound editing: Dialogue, ADR, Effects, Foley and Music.

The Career Achievement Award is presented to a person whose career has made a significant impact on the sound community through exemplary work, service, or leadership. Supervising Sound Editor Greg Hedgepath will receive the MPSE Career Achievement Award current year.

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82nd Golden Globes Awards Winners

Last night's Golden Globes awards show was not what used to be in the past (used to be lots more wilder) but was entertaining even when new owners and new voters seem to be doing the same that previous foreign press voters, they spread the wealth among several movies. Proof is that top award winner got 5 wins out of 10 nominations followed by The Brutalist with 4 out of 7 nominations, which left room for several other movies also winning a golden globe.

The red carpet was also different as for my first time ever ended well-before the time when the show started, leaving TV broadcasters trying to kill time with whatever they had available. Variety, ET and CBS broadcast started to show bits from Variety's Actors on Actors web series and just image what local TV stations around the world had to do. Where I am now, they started to gossip!!! (LOL, was awful!).

Will not deny that I'm extremely pleased with Emilia Pérez being the top winner and winner top award as perhaps some of you noticed that usually awards leave drama category for last but in this edition organizers placed Musical or Comedy category last as was what everyone was more interested this year thus becoming the most sought after result. Bravo Jacques Audiard you outdo yourself once again. Yes, I'm totally biased as Audiard is one of my most admired contemporary master film directors. Let's hope that the winning trend continues up to the Oscars but I'm realistic, Academics are quite an older bunch and still skeptic and wonder if they will dare to reward 1) a musical with 2) a trans story.

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#Oscars2025 International Feature Film Shortlist

Yesterday The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the shortlist for the International Feature Film category and even when there are some expected films, there are others that surprised me. Sigh.

Was hoping for Emilia Pérez to be in the list because believe it's a great innovative film and Jaques Audiard, one of my favorite contemporary directors deserve all the accolades for this movie. What I was not expecting is the list to contain a film by another of my favorite directors, Baltasar Kormákur with his film Touch that still have just because is his film.

Somehow knew The Seed of the Sacred Fig was going to be on the list and unfortunately the other non-English film with strong buzz All We Imagine as Light cannot make the list as another film was submitted by India. Other films expected to be on the list are I'm Still Here, Kneecap, The Girl with the Needle and Vermiglio. Wasn't sure if Flow would make it to this list as was hoping that film gets a nomination in the Animation category; still hope Flow gets a nomination in Animation category, as here there are too-many extremely good films competing for a spot in the nominations.

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40th Annual Artios Awards

As we all know Casting will soon become a category to be honored by AMPAS with Oscar recognition therefore now is good time to start monitoring the category.

First a brief background history of the once known as Casting Society of America (CSA) and since 1982 is known as Casting Society -dropped "of America" but kept the initials CSA- that nowadays is a global organization of casting professionals.

As I find some milestones interesting, will share them, like this one that talks about the first time a movie credited casting and movie is none other than the original Thomas Crown Affair. Pioneers like Marion Dougherty in New York and Lynn Stalmaster in Los Angeles open the first independent casting offices, breaking away from the studio system and changing the landscape of casting forever. In 1968, Lynn Stalmaster receives the first single card credit in the main title for The Thomas Crown Affair,recognizing the importance of casting directors in the industry.

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27th Costume Designers Guild Awards

On Friday, December 13, the guild announced nominations for the 27th CDGA (Costume Designers Guild Awards), celebrating excellence in film, television, short form costume design and costume illustration. As film categories define different film genres there is no film leading and nominated films include films like Conclave and Emilia Pérez in Contemporary Film, Maria and Saturday Night for Period Film, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Dune: Part Two and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film.

Only costume designers are listed in the initial release. Assistant costume designers will be announced at a later date, pending vetting and approval by the awards team.

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30th Prix Lumières

On Thursday, December 12th the Académie des Lumières announced the nominations for the 30th edition of the Prix Lumières given by international press correspondents from 38 countries which conform the Academy.

Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard leads with 6 nominations followed by L’Histoire de Souleymane (Souleymane's Story) by Boris Lojkine and Miséricorde (Misericordia by Alain Guiraudie with 5 nominations each, and with 4 nominations each, Quand vient l’automne (When Fall Is Coming) by François Ozon and Les Fantômes (Ghost Trail) by Jonathan Millet.

The awards ceremony will be on Monday, January 20, 2025 at Forum des Images. Thirteen categories will be honored with one Lumière trophy, creation of Monnaie de Paris by Joaquín Jiménez.

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75th Annual ACE Eddie Awards Nominations

A few days back the American Cinema Editors (ACE) announced the nominations for the awards that recognize outstanding editing in eleven categories of film, television, documentaries and more.

Since 1951, American Cinema Editors has celebrated the best in television and feature film editing which makes them one of the longest-running awards shows in the entertainment industry.

A prelude to the Oscars, the Eddies are considered a barometer for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Best Picture and Best Editing categories. Since the last 24 years, the Eddie winner for theatrical drama has gone win the Academy Award for Best Editing 14 of 24 times. Nevertheless in the last four years only once have coincide.

The ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year, which recognizes distiguished achievent in art and business of film, will go to Jon M. Chu; Career Achievement Awards will be presented to Paul Hirsch and Maysie Hoy.

The Awards ceremony will be on January 18, 2025 at Royce Hall in Los Angeles.

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30th Annual Critics Choice Awards

Yesterday the Critics Choice Association (CCA) announced their nominations but before getting into them have to share the changes the organization suffered while I was in silence mode.

The Critics Choice Association (CCA) is a group of broadcast, radio and online critics as well as entertainment journalists who review films and documentaries as well as scripted and unscripted television.

Founded 28 years ago as the Broadcast Film Critics Association by Joey Berlin, Rod Lurie and 42 founding members, the CCA is now the largest critics organization in the USA and Canada with more than 580 members.

The CCA was officially formed in 2019 with the merger of the Broadcast Film Critics Association and its sister organization, the Broadcast Television Journalists Association. So, this means there is no longer a Broadcast Film Critics Association and now is the Critics Choice Association the one that presents the CCMovie Awards, CCSuper Awards, CCReal TV Awards, CCTelevision Awards, and CCDocumentary Awards plus Celebrations event of BlacK Cinema and Television, Latino Cinema and TV, and Asian Pacific Cinema and TV.

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12th Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild Awards

Yesterday Julie Socash, IATSE Local 706 President, announced the nominations for the 12th Annual MUAHS Guild Awards.

The MUAHS Awards represent a spectrum of outstanding achievements in 23 categories of make-up and hair styling artistry in motion pictures, television, commercials, music videos and live theater, including Broadway and international productions. In the industry the guild is known as IATSE Local 706.

As previously announced, Todd McIntosh, Emmy-winning make-up artist, known for his work on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Memoirs of a Geisha,” and Peter Tothpal, award-winning hair stylist known for his work on “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,” will receive the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Awards. The Distinguished Artisan honoree will be announced shortly.

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36th Producers Guild Awards

Yesterday, December 10th, the Producers Guild of America (PGA) announced the 2025 Documentary Motion Picture nominees that will advance to the final round of voting to define a winner of Saturday, February 8th, 2025 at the Fairmont Century Plaza.

As organizers noted, below films are in the process of being vetted for individual producer eligibility which gives me clue to remind all that in this blog the film director is always listed after the movie name.

It is a big surprise to not find No Other Land, an awards season favorite, in the nominees and I'm not sure the reason why. Went to read trade articles but all I could find is that was an omission and nothing about being disqualified. So, went to the official site to read the Rules and Procedures Mark Eligibility - Documentary Motion Pictures (to read them go here) and according to rules, No Other Land qualified. Seems was an omission. Sigh.

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