80th Venice International Film Festival Award Winners

This year not only festival was slow, had a lot less media coverage (surely due to the lack of International celebrities that are on strike), but due to my new normal wasn't able to give as much time as in previous years and yes, my favorite post started to move quickly, talking about the list of films submited to #Oscars2024 International Feature Film category.

So here are the award winners. Post will be updated as soon as awards are announced and will be finished after the closing ceremony tomorrow, Saturday, September 9.

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17th Queer Lion Award Lineup and Winner

The Poster

Queer Lion, this year, pays tribute to Aus meiner Haut (Skin Deep), a movie that portraysthe dynamics that codify the complex language of feelings, by telling a love story that literally transcends bodies. What initially appears as a body swapping horror movie, quickly starts overcoming both cinematic genres and genders. In doing so, it poses surprisingly clever and daring questions, challenging the very nature and purpose of love, be it the mind, the body, the pleasure or the laws of desire. In demolishing the idea of per-established roles in favor of endless fluid possibilities, the movie boldly succeeds in turning the acronym LGBTQ into a single word.

Aus meiner Haut (Skin Deep) by German-Kazakh director Alex Schaad was the winner of the 16th edition of the Queer Lion Award.

Author of the artwork inspired by the movie is Francesco Gangemi Illustrator: “It was created using paper art technique, paired with a strong ink stroke and bright contrasting colours. Details in tissue paper refine the image and help strengthening the emotional impact. The ink, applied with passion and emotional zeal, creates a chaotic, surreal atmosphere evoking both the mysteries and the intertwoven lives and personal feelings we get to see throughout the whole movie, whose leads’ deep gazes reveal perceptions, identities, quests for help and understanding, merging together in a single face, in a single identity”.

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80th Venice International Film Festival Lineup

Current year hasn't been easy for me but today decided to do a condensed version of the usual very long post to list films in the Biennale Cinema as not easy to find a list without comments, just a plain old list with enough info to get an idea of the quality of the film. The last is the ultimate objective of all the festival listings that are included here as undoubtedly facilitates the visualization of what I wish to see during the coming year. Already have quite a few films from Cannes, Berlinale and other film festivals like Karlovy Vary, Rotterdam among others.

Official press conference took place on July 25th and my spontaneous impression then was a festival more Euro/World centrated which absolutely makes it a lot more interesting for me. On different news, Caterina Murino is the host of the opening and closing ceremonies and none other than Damien Chazelle is the International Jury President of Venezia 80 competition.

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96th Academy Awards International Feature Film Submissions

Today, June 19 is a good day to start the yearly post with usually the best cinema from each country in the world and if not at least is the list of films that absolutely would like to watch as soon as possible.

To read Rule Fifteen - Special Rules for the International Feature Film Award go Academy official site here. Particularly a remarkable change for 2024 edition is the following:  in the Best International Feature Film category, the selection committee from each country that chooses that country’s Oscar submission must now be made up of at least 50% filmmakers.

Monday, October 2, 2023 is the final submission deadline for International Feature Film category.

Update: Today, August 4, 2023 Switzerland announced their selection and becomes the first country to announce their entry to #Oscars2024 International Feature Film category.

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76th Festival de Cannes Award Winners

As several awards have been announced decided to start post today. Post will be in progress until after the awards ceremony on Saturday, May 27th.

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76th Cannes Film Festival Lineup

Update 2 - May 12, 2023 - Today organizers uploaded info, available trailers and more for each movie in the Official Selection and post becomes final after the current update. There are some incongruences that still have to figure out but generally speaking what has been announced in previous press releases is included in the correspondent section. So, there are only 6 days to opening day and I am looking forward to the start of the greatest cinema feast. Enjoy!!!

Update 1 - April 27, 2023 -Recently festival organizers released the Additions to the Selection and list includes film that were expected but nevertheless are not only great additions but also extraordinary films by some great master filmmakers.
In Competition Black Flies and Le Retour were added, in Cannes Premier Perdidos en la Noche, L'amour et les forets, and Eureka; in Out of Competition L'abbe pierre-une vie de combats; in Un Certain Regard Only the River Flows and Une Nuit; in Short Film Filles du Feu; in Special Screenings, Little Girl Blue, Bread and Roses and Le theoreme de Marguerite; in Midnight Screening Hypnotic and Project Silence.

Above films means that more well-known actors and directors will/could walk the red carpet to delight of all who also appreciates the light side of the festival. So, Viggo Mortensen, Chiara Mastroianni -who is this edition Master of Ceremonies-, Marion Cottillard, Amat Escalante, Lisandro Alonso, Virginie Efira, Ben Affleck, Alice Braga, and more.

Seems no more films will be announced but will wait until info about each film is uploaded to official site to make this post final.
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April 14, 2023

Yesterday the much awaited press conference with the announcement of the Official Selection for the Cannes Film Festival took place and, besides the long speeches, the list of films was out-of-the-ordinary and gave absolute feeling that festival wishes to recoup its past glories and top-of-mind in the festival circuit and the film industry.

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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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