94th Academy Awards International Feature Film Submissions

Update #1: Finally yesterday AMPAS released the list of films eligible for consideration in the International Feature Film category and there are ninety-three countries that have submitted films.

The Academy mentions there are some films which have not yet had their required qualifying release and must fulfill that requirement and comply with all the category’s other qualifying rules to advance in the voting process; so, there could be films that will not be considered for the shortlist of 15 that will be announced on December 21, 2021.

Also according to The Academy rules "An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (more than 40 minutes) produced outside the United States with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track". They also highlight the fact that Somalia is a first-time entrant.

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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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69th Berlinale Complete Lineup Final

Post is ready with all sections verified and yes, have read about each of below films. Festival has about 400 films and below list has most of them.  Sections listed with films have ALL films (features and shorts, if applicable) and Forum has some additional older films that interested me.

There are many films that I'm looking forward to watch, which have exponentially increased my viewing queue, sigh.  No doubt this year Berlinale Competition is very interesting with films of well-known directors -which is always welcomed as believe newcomers should debut in fests other than-competitition sections, unless their film is outstanding...

In about a week the fest will began and yes, I'm starting to feel sad as will miss Kosslick and his pleasant larger than life casual personality.  But will try to enjoy him for one last time during the festival.  Wonder if he leaves, will fun-to-watch (in a very dark way) Anke Engelke leave too?  The chemistry these two had was like oil and water but was the funniest I have seen in any festival and elsewhere; remember that I like very-dark dry humor (lol).

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75th Venice Film Festival Award Winners

As promised and because it's easy to read in one single place all winners, here are the winners of the 2018 Biennale Cinema.

Watched awards live but ceremony was not much entertaining and with so many American movies in the festival I was not that much interested in learning winners (sigh) nor watching clips.

Nevertheless I'm glad that most awards went to interesting possibilities and well-known and much-admired-by-me directors like Jacques Audiard, Yorgos Lanthimos and Julian Schanbel.  Worth mentioning that Audiard's award relaxes me a bit as I'm still anxious about his first film in a language that is not his mother tongue as there are so-many disasters with so-few successes when extraordinary directors work on English-language productions. Sigh.

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75th Venice International Film Festival Lineup

As was not easy to gather info about films countries submitted to Oscars 2019, decided to do the two missing posts about the 2018 Biennale as it's a lot easier to check info from only one source.  This is the lineup, the second will list the award winners.

Let's start by sharing that the festival poster was made by Lorenzo Mattotti. Mattotti says the following about his design, "I believe that a poster must have something intriguing about it, that attracts the eye, that attracts thought, but without revealing too much. It needs to have a sort of enigma, a sort of mystery to solve. After various attempts, I developed this idea of a girl of this female character – with a very graphic, unrealistic face – who looks with a rather serious expression through a lens. And instead of this lens, there’s Earth, planet Earth, symbolizing a gaze directed at us. Then there is a white square, and I believe that this combination is a successful match, because people wonder: what is that white square? I believe it is natural to think of it as a movie screen, the white screen. The gaze directed on the planet, directed on reality, must pass through this device, must be filtered through the screen".

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91st Academy Awards Foreign Language Film Submissions

Tuesday, October 9, 2018 Update

Yesterday the Academy released the accepted foreign-language films that will compete to be included in the shortlist of 9, get one of the 5 nominations and the ultimate goal, win an Oscar.

This year there are a total of eighty-seven (87) films, five short of last year ninety-two and there are quite a few countries that submit for the first time like Belarus and Malawi, for example.

Until yesterday the list had 81 countries, but there are not 6 new as 2 are out (Cuba and Kyrgyzstan) and 8 (Armenia, Australia, China, Kazakhstan, Malawi, New Zealand, Niger, Yemen) are new.   There are few films that have a different English name in the official list and for post purposes the list below will have the names in the official list, even when at least one film, official English name is not the one in AMPAS list.

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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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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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2016 Cannes Possible Films - The Buzz

Now, when the American awards season is finally over and while still there are some European annual awards to come, it's time to think about great cinema again and think about the mother of all festivals. Yay!

Alright, this is not my wish list but a compendium of possible films that could make it to Cannes this year. List is made from several Cannes articles plus some lists with most anticipated films of 2016, films I've been tracking and my daily readings.

As we already know, Cannes begins in Berlin, not in the red carpet but in the industry market so it's no surprise that many articles appeared while the Berlinale and after the Berlinale market closed.

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2015 Cannes Check #7 - The Asians

Asian directors also have significant presence among the 19 films in the main competition as three films come from that side of the world. Already talked about Jia Zhangke and now is time to review Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Kore-eda Hirokazu.

Hou Hsiao-Hsien

A leading figure of Taiwan's New Wave cinema movement that abandoned the melodrama and kung-fu action films for the realism in urban or rural Taiwan, promoting the narrative structure that progresses at the pace as it would in real life. His work engages themes of political, cultural, and personal transition, frequently through oblique narratives grounded upon generational conflicts. For these and many more reasons he is my favorite Taiwanese director of all times.

He was born in April 8, 1947 in Meixian, Guangdong province, China but in 1948 his family fled the Chinese Civil War to Taiwan where he was educated at the National Taiwan Academy of the Arts. After graduation in 1972, he worked briefly as a salesman. Later he began his film career as a scriptwriter and assistant director. His first cinema-related work dates back to 1973 when he was the script supervisor for Xin you qian qian jie. Took him almost a decade to finally do his first feature film, 1980 Jiushi liuliu de ta (Cute Girl) and almost two more decades for me to discover him.

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9th Asian Film Awards Winners

The 9th Asian Film Awards (AFA) ceremony was held at The Venetian Macao last night, commemorating another year of excellence in Asian cinema. The 9th AFA was jointly organized by the Asian Film Awards Academy (AFAA), and its constituent partners – Busan Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival and Hong Kong Film Festival.

Hong Kong pop star, and breakout actress Ivana Wong opened the 9th AFA ceremony with a heartfelt singing performance. Later, South Korean band Infinite entertained guests with an energetic musical set, which was then followed by loud applause from their dedicated fans.

Overall, Mainland China’s films stole the show, winning awards in 10 categories out of 14, including 3 out of the 4 major accolades. This year’s coveted Best Film Award went to Blind Massage. Other major winners this year include Ann Hui who took home the Best Director award for The Golden Era. Liao Fan beat out other nominees for the Best Actor Award for his role in Black Coal, Thin Ice. However, it was South Korean Bae Doo-na who was awarded Best Actress for her stunning performance in A Girl At My Door.

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9th Asian Film Awards Nominations

Recently the Asian Film Awards Academy announced the 74 nominations of 42 films from eight (8) countries. Winners will be selected by a jury that comprises 14 film industry professionals and critics; the awards ceremony will be held on March 25 at The Venetian Theatre in Macao.

Inaugurated in 2007, the Asian Film Awards celebrates excellence in Asian cinema through the annual presentation of awards to the many diverse talents and films that make up the dynamic film industries of the region. Founded by the Hong Kong International Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival and Tokyo International Film Festival in late 2013, the AFA Academy aims to promote, develop and enrich Asian cinema, its talents and audiences by organizing the AFA and a diversity of other programs across Asia through working closely with film, arts and culture partners from around the world. This year AFA received over a thousand films from 34 countries across Asia.

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8th Asia Pacific Screen Awards Winners

As happened to me last year, this year was not able to see the awards ceremony live -which upsets me as this ceremony is very ceremonial, so different to what we see in in the west. Nevertheless can't deny that I'm very pleased that the movie of one of my favorite directors won the top award -which wasn't difficult as there were two of my favorite directors competing head to head-. Yes Andrey Zvyagintsev acclaimed Leviathan won the top award and to not upset Palme d'Or winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan (and me), the jury gave him the Best Director award for Winter Sleep.

As we know these awards recognize and promote cinematic excellence and cultural diversity of the world’s fastest-growing film region: comprising 70 countries and areas, 4.5 billion people, and responsible for half of the world’s film output. 2014 was a very good year for the are as produced many of the year greatest world films that were honored in Cannes and continued to collect multiple awards around the world.

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2015 Golden Globes Foreign Language Films Long List

Recently the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) announced that there are 53 motion pictures that have been approved for Golden Globe consideration in the Foreign Language category. In order to qualify for foreign language consideration, a film must have at least 51% of its dialogue in a language other than English, it must be released in its country or countries (in case of co-production) of origin between Nov. 1, 2013, and Dec. 31, 2014, and it must have an official screening for HFPA voting members.

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Day 7 at Cannes 2014

Today is an "UP" day in the roller-coaster as we have films by European and Asian master filmmakers, the Best of the Best from those regions. Fantastic day.

The Competition

Deux Jours, Une Nuit (Two Days and One Night) by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

What can I say about the two-time Palme d'Or winners director-duo plus one of the most important actresses in contemporary world cinema working together? Not much. Just that it is must be seen for me and hopefully will be ASAP. But will try to add something more.

Another Dardenne social drama this time about the economic crisis that surely will be intense with extraordinary performances by Dardenne regular, Fabrizio Rongione and Marion Cotillard. Have to share that I am so grateful that Marion Cotillard always returns to Europe to do GREAT movies as her goings into Hollywood cinema have not been that good, but know that she must be making lots of money (lol!). The last time was in great Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone and now for the first time ever in a Dardenne brothers film that has to be like another great step in her career, as she said: "tourner avec eux revenait à accéder à l’inaccessible".

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Day 6 at Cannes 2014

I thought it was only me having the impression that this year the festival had a weak in-competition selection but no, it is not only me who is "concern" with the quality of the films. Fest has been like a roller-coaster, one day is great with mood going up, next is not good with mood going down and you can feel everything from the brief writings of Twitter to the headlines of film reviews.

Of course there are some exceptions and according to me up-to-today, with four days to go, the only exceptions are Nuri Bilge Ceylan's film and perhaps the only Italian film in competition, both films fit what used to be the high festival standards. Still hope that there are a couple of more films with those standards.

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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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2014 Cannes Film Festival Wish List

Know is very early but today was reading a magazine article with Cannes rumors and got really excited as the article included some movies by great directors and whether or not make it to the fest, it is absolutely necessary to have these movies recorded here for future viewing. Hope we all enjoy some if not ALL of the following films. Sorry for the French summaries posted when no English ones are available and me too lazy to translate (lol).

From French Directors

Bird People by Pascale Ferran with -the voice of- Mathieu Amalric plus Josh Charles, Anaïs Demoustier
An American arrives in Paris, checks into a hotel, turns off his cell phone and starts his life anew.

La Chambre Bleue by and with Mathiew Amalric
Un homme et une femme s’aiment en secret dans une chambre, se désirent, se veulent, se mordent même. Puis s’échangent quelques mots anodins après l’amour. Du moins l’homme le croit-il...
A man and woman who make love in secret in a bedroom. They desire and long for each other, even bite each other. Then they exchange a few banalities after making love. Or at least that’s what the man believes. Adaptation of Georges Simenon's novel with the same name (1964).

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頤和園 Yihe yuan (Summer Palace)

Lou Ye's films have eluded me but finally I was able to watch this 2006 Cannes in competition film and I was not prepared for what I watched at all. I really love what I call non-commercial Chinese cinema especially from those directors in the so-called The Fifth Generation (like Zhang Yimou, for example) and The Sixth Generation (like Jia Zhangke) that I believe have a peculiar and particular style in their films. But if one director blows completely my mind is Wong Kar-wai with his unique style to tell so-called moody romance stories; well, that's it until I saw this movie.

According to what I read, Lou Ye belongs to The Six Generation and yes I can see the impressive realistic style in this movie as more than once gives the impression of watching cinéma vérité but this movie has something else that I have seen not before in Chinese movies much less in the work of The Six Generation directors I have seen. First there is a clear drama with an intense-love story that abounds elsewhere but not among Chinese filmmakers; so intense, both in story as in visuals, that film seems to me like a fusion of European (more French) style with Chinese style and believe me, the end result is amazing if you love both styles. Second, love/sex scenes are so visually explicit and raw that definitively I have not seen anything similar in "good" Chinese cinema, not even in the explicit sex scenes of Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. Third, movie story mixes fiction and reality creating an illusion that perhaps talks more about "truth" that if director decided to portrait only "truth" (which obviously was impossible as he/film would be banned). I could go on, but these three aspects are the basic ones to give you an idea of what you will seen in film.

Films tells an epic story that spans to several cities and over a decade but basic plot rotates around Yu Hong (Hao Lei) a young woman from Tumen, who is accepted to a fictional university in Beijing. There she meets Li Ti (Hu Lingling) and become close friends. Li Ti introduces Zhou Wei (Guo Xiadong) to Yu Hong and her life is changed forever as Zhou Wei becomes her obsessive love and obsession is mutual. But they have a volatile love affair, probably as volatile as the political forces that are moving towards Tiananmen Square. This story happens in what I call the first movie as storytelling style is very different to what follows in the second movie.

Second movie starts after the Tiananmen Square with the three main characters parting ways as Yu Hong returns to Tumen while Li Ti and Zhou Wei emigrate to Germany. Won't tell you more details of what happens but in the end complete story for me is about how unprepared where the Chinese to live in the "new" Chinese society, more specific, how unprepared were to live in (so-called) "freedom". Very interesting story told, again, mixing fiction and fact.

I was absolutely mesmerized by first movie as I think I was in shock of watching the "perfect" mélange of European/Chinese visual and narrative styles and yes I had my "what is this" moment as how could I imagine what I was seeing with no previous reference? Soon enough I got involved, forgot about thinking and started to only enjoy the fantastic ride. Second movie came a bit as a downer as wonderful style becomes more arid, dry, has more light but there are lots of foggy/hazy/greyish scenes. Obviously the second movie style was used to complement the story narrative that also is a lot more arid, dry, grey than first part. Fantastic.

For occidental standards is a long movie as has 140 minutes, I'm used to see "long" movies but not often I can spend that amount of time in awe with my mouth open unable to stop watching for a second, unable to move. That's how much I was affected by this movie that I enjoyed beyond my wildest expectations, but then I had no expectations at all, so perhaps that's why I got the intense reaction.

I strongly recommend this movie (if you haven't seen it yet) as definitively is a must be seen for those that enjoy European, mainly French, cinema as well as excellent Chinese cinema. Not surprisingly share that I have to see "everything" by Lou Ye to understand more how he evolved his amazing storytelling style up to this 2006 film and how he continue evolving with his subsequent movies.

Big Enjoy!!!

Watch trailer @MOC