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Thursday, January 30, 2020

70th Berlin Film Festival Lineup


Yes, I am (or was?) a huge fan of this festival and highly enjoyed Dieter Kosslick's black humor and many of his official selections during the many years he was the festival's director.  This is the first festival without Dieter Kosslick and under the Executive Direction of Mariette Rissenbeek and the Artistic Direction of Carlo Chatrian.  My first spontaneous reaction is that festival looks and feels different as Competition lineup (which always is the main festival event) seems different perhaps less festival particular and more like other festivals.

Time will say if my first impression is real or just my reaction to change.  Change does not come only at top levels as almost all sections have new heads.  So, no doubt the festival has gone a major overhaul.  Hope finds its own and different to the other 2 major film festivals niche as if not, will risk to go outside the major 3 and film festivals will have only 2 major participants until another grows to become the third one.

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Thursday, April 19, 2018

71st Festival de Cannes Official Selection - Update 1


As announced during the press conference of April 12th, today, April 19, organizers announced the films added to the composition of the Official Selection 2018.

There is some relief to my not positive feeling that this year there is an incredibly great official competition jury and there are not many great films for them to select winners from.  But now things can change a bit as, ladies and gentlemen, please notice that Nuri Bilge Ceylan is as of now in the competition to win the Palme d'or and perhaps has become the top contender along Jia Zhangke.  Well, at least their films have become must-be-seen for me no matter whatever happens in Cannes.

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Saturday, March 17, 2018

2018 Cannes Possible Films - The Buzz


As happens every single year, Cannes buzz starts during Berlinale and gets louder when Berlinale ends.  Even do been following the buzz since then this year haven't post anything as some of you guessed right, my life has changed and now it's not easy to keep on writing for you, loyal readers.  But no matter how many changes have happened or will occur, Cannes is Cannes for me and have to (or at least will try to) write my regular posts about the buzz, my wish list and all the other stuff done in the previous years.

No, this is not my Wish List but the usual compilation of possible films that could make it to Cannes which usually do in February but well, I'm doing it a month later and by now most industry publications have done their own lists, so it's not a novelty but will be a lot easier to make it, lol.

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Friday, October 13, 2017

11th Asia Pacific Screen Awards Nominations


The nominations for the 11th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA), the region’s highest accolade in film, celebrating cinematic excellence were today announced in the seven narrative feature categories by Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk, together with former APSA International Jury President Lord David Puttnam, member of the APSA 2017 Nominations Council Kiki Fung and Chair of APSA and its Academy, Michael Hawkins.

41 films from 21 countries and areas of the Asia Pacific region have received nominations in 2017, including the first nomination for a film from Bhutan. Winners will be announced at the 11th APSA ceremony on November 23, where they will be presented with a unique and exquisite handmade APSA award vessel made by Brisbane-based internationally awarded glass artist Joanna Bone.

This edition has no clear nominations leader as there area three outstanding films leading the pack with three nominations each: Sweet Country by Warwick Thornton, The Third Murder by Hirokazu Kore-eda and Scary Mother by Ana Urushadze.

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Saturday, May 20, 2017

Day 4 at #Cannes2017


The most unusual question came up yesterday, why you don't do reviews anymore? Have no answer but to say that maybe will do it again, eventually when the "dry" spell I'm is over. No matter how dry the spell is, I love to learn about movies and there you have it, that's the reason why I like to do this day-to-day Cannes coverage where I learn about movies already know I like and more important, discover movies that I didn't have idea could like.  That's the answer to the second question, why do I do this daily Cannes coverage?  If you miss my reviews the next best thing for now is to learn which films call my attention as surely will enjoy them and perhaps you, loyal readers, too.  So, that's it. Thank you for your questions.

Today is another interesting day as there are several films that call my attention; unless I really lost my sight into the future, the Queer Palm winner will be seen today by audiences plus juries and was seen yesterday by the press with the very positive reactions. Also today a quiet American film which is kind of an oxymoron especially because has two top Hollywood stars and a Mexican film with all the right credentials including an actress from the last Almodovar film.

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Friday, September 09, 2016

64th San Sebastian Film Festival Lineup - Update 1


Update 1 with Jury members of the three competitive sections listed below.  Zabaltegi films and jury are not listed below, but it's worth mentioning that is the section's first competitive year and jurors are, Spanish filmmaker Virginia García del Pino (chair), Uruguayan filmmaker Federico Veiroj, and producer Corinne Castel.

8/26/16
This year organizers started very early to tease with constant drops that add to the torrent of films that make the Official Selection as well as the other sections of the festival. So, been trying to do post since a while back, but didn't wanted to do constant updates.

Seems that today finally the Official Selection has been announced completely and according to latest toll there are twenty-five (25) films in the Official Selection with seventeen (17) films in the main Competition, four (4) Out of Competition and four (4) Special Screenings.

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Thursday, September 01, 2016

#TIFF16 Platform Selection


The directors-focused section is only in its second year, but has already lined up outstanding filmmakers with twelve (12) films from Canada, Australia, France, Bhutan, Belgium, USA, United Kingdom, and Netherlands.

“In its inaugural year in 2015, Platform successfully established itself as fundamental to the Festival, and we’re proud to present a dramatically thrilling and daring program for its second year,” said TIFF Artistic Director Cameron Bailey. This year, Platform takes on complex and bold narratives that range from a dark, twisted fantasy, a dramatic crime thriller, an existential illusion to the reinterpretation of a satirical tragedy, a raw coming-of-age story, and tales of revolutions, radicals, and revenge. The program will open with the international premiere of the powerful and topical drama Nocturama from critically acclaimed director-writer Bertrand Bonello.

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Wednesday, April 06, 2016

9th La Fabrique des Cinémas du Monde Selection


Waited a couple of days to share the selection for the 2016 edition because organizers had to uncover a new website and yes, now is open, new and a lot easier to browse. Congrats to the Institut Français that by-the-way also has other programs to support cultural diversity like the Cinémathèque Afrique (African Film Archive) and Aide aux Cinémas du Monde (World Cinema Support), a fund which is co-managed with the CNC.

As not many are aware of this Festival de Cannes collateral event let's share some basics about the professional program.

La Fabrique des Cinémas du Monde is a professional program helping talented young directors from emerging countries increase their international exposure. Each year this program, developed by the Institut français, in partnership with France Médias Monde – RFI, France 24, Monte Carlo Doualiya- with the support of The International Organization of La Fancophonie, invites ten directors working on their first or second feature films to attend the Festival de Cannes along with their producers.

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Friday, March 18, 2016

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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Monday, November 23, 2015

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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Sunday, October 25, 2015

#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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Saturday, September 26, 2015

63rd San Sebastian International Film Festival Award Winners


Perhaps is my perception but seems that main awards tend to go to European and European co-productions movies which is interesting.  Awards ceremony was really fast which makes us wish the same speed to those traditionally-very-long awards ceremony in America.

I'm glad that a movie that is must be seen for me got the top award as I have to see everything by Rúnar Rúnarsson as his second feature film, Sparrows, seems will be as good as his first one, Volcano. Cheers! and congratulations to Iceland.

So that's it until next year!

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Sunday, September 20, 2015

40th Toronto International Film Festival Award Winners


Awards ceremony was quite informal, light and somehow fun-to-watch especially when the Platform jury took the stage and made us laugh (hard). Yes it was very unexpected to see Jia Zhang-ke, Claire Denis and Agnieszka Hollad doing light comedy but gee, it worked!!! Funny and fun-to-watch.

So, actually, there are several awards in Toronto fest, but will start with the Platform winners and then the others.

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Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Day 8 - Cannes 2015




Today is the day of Jia Zhangke, one of my most admired contemporary Chinese directors so will be no surprise when I share that I'm extremely pleased with yesterday's positive reactions via social media. That's the good news as the bad news are about the festival winding down as after today there are only four more films in the competition and three more days to start learning about the first awards.

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Tuesday, May 05, 2015

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.

---///----
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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Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Day 8 at Cannes 2014


The festival is fading away as practically we get only one more day of competition as on Friday we will start to learn winners in parallel sections. Still in the main competition we have four more movies by four great directors that unfortunately were scheduled to towards the end of the fest, when most of the media are no longer in Cannes. Next year maybe organizers will schedule in the final days whatever American films they have and then we will see that media stays until the last day. Sigh.

The Competition

The Search by Michel Hazanavicius

A few days ago I had a discussion about this film as the friends I was with could not understand that a remake was in competition and on top, the remake changed almost everything in story. So the question was: why keep the name? Why he didn't changed the name? We had no answers then and surely will not have answers today, but the first reactions to film are of the not positive kind, which undoubtedly in my mind is a consequence of doing a remake, changing a lot of the story, keeping the name and a not-good director.

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Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Day 1 at Cannes 2014


Today the cinema party begins with the opening ceremony followed by the screening of the out of competition opening film, Grace of Monaco and the day closes with the first official party. Also today the main jury is presented to the press as well as the fest host. Tomorrow the parallel sections begin and the festival goes into full force.

There are three versions of the Opening Ceremony with three different lengths and if you can't see the first two, I am sure you will be able to watch the video at the bottom of the post that has the red carpet plus the opening ceremony. Enjoy!!!

It was a very busy day at Cannes with too much happening and there was just one movie screened! So I'm leaving the not-serious news plus the parties for tomorrow, but imagine how is going to be tomorrow when all sections start to screen movies, crazy, crazy. Sigh.

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Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Day Minus One at Cannes 2014


In about 24 hours we will have already watched the red carpet and as of this very moment when I'm writing this, we will be waiting for the Opening Ceremony to start. But as we know tomorrow starts a lot earlier with the press screening, press photocall and press conference of the opening film, as well as with the arrival of the "celebrities" at Nice airport and their hotels.

This year has been unusual as most of the Cannes official site info was not released one week before the festival begins but today, few hours ago finally movies info was released and yes I have been watching movie clips from all films that have them, as there are a trio of films in competition that still have no videos, Leviathan, Sils Maria and The Search. Also the iphone/ipad app was not updated until today. No idea yet why the digital coverage came too late but hope we will learn the reason eventually. Sigh.

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67th Festival de Cannes Official Selection - Update 4


As this year information has been coming in drops let's update post with today's drop. The closing film is 1964 A Fistful of Dollars by Sergio Leone which will be screened after the awards ceremony on Saturday, May 24th and will be hosted by Quentin Tarantino.

Also in the same "drop" the announcement that the Cinéma de la Plage will screen the 2014 film by Frédéric Auburtin, United Passion. A film about football that will take place on Sunday May 18 with the presence of the director, Gérard Depardieu and Sepp Blatter, FIFA President. As a reminder, if you wish to learn all films in the Cinéma de la Plage section go here.

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Saturday, May 03, 2014

2014 Cannes Check #5: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne


The master filmmakers brothers from Belgium are what we can consider Cannes regulars and belong to a very exclusive group of directors that have won twice the Palme d'Or with Rosetta (1999) and L'Enfant (2005). They also have won Best Screenplay with Le Silence de Lorna (2008) and Grand Prize of the Jury with Le gamin au vélo (2011).

This is their sixth time in competition and ninth time in Cannes, with a history that started in 1987 with the screening of their first feature film (before they did short and documentaries), Falsch in the Quinzaine, came back again in 1996 with La Promesse and twelve years after their first visit win their first Palme d'Or with Rosetta. From then on their films are premiered at the most prestigious film festival and his latest, Deux Jours, Une Nuit is no exception as is in this year competition.

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