Our Oscar chart updates are underway (much more coming at you tomorrow) and now The European Film Award nominations are out. The Film Experience always enjoys their attempt at boiling down so many countries into one group of "best of"s. The American and British Film Academies don't have it so hard, you know, each generally only dealing with the best of Hollywood and London with the occasional embassy outreach to a hot foreigner. (That'd be The Artist this year).
Melancholia vs. The Artist at the EFAs
For our Oscar discussion purposes the most amusing thing about this year's lineup is that two Oscar winners from 2010 (the UK's The Kings Speech and Denmark's In a Better World) are competing against one of the presumed frontrunners of 2011 (France's The Artist) with a few arthouse madman (The Melancholia) and French language side dishes (The Kid With a Bike -- not submitted for this year's Oscar race -- and Le Havre, which is an Oscar submission for in Best Foreign Film).
FILM
- The Artist
- Le Havre
- In a Better World
- The Kid With a Bike
- The King's Speech
- Melancholia
Sigh. The King's Speech. At this point it's like an unstaked British vampire, sucking the life from Gallic beauties and crazy Danes.
DIRECTOR
- Susanne Bier, In a Better World
- The Dardenne Brothers, The Kid With a Bike
- Aki Kaurismäki, Le Havre
- Béla Tarr, The Turin Horse
- Lars von Trier, Melancholia
It seems absolutlely bizarre to snub Michael Hazanavicius for direction (The Artist, more than most movies, would've been a disaster without its careful but exuberant guiding hand). Meanwhile Tom Hooper probably won't lose sleep over his snubbing here. Once you've won the Oscar...
ACTRESS
- Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia
- Cécile de France, The Kid With a Bike
- Charlotte Gainsbourg, Melancholia
- Nadezdha Markina, Elena
- Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin
Melancholia's sisters (Dunst & Gainsbourg) each get half the movie. They also share the EFA nom.
We're literally revisiting Cannes jury deliberations for this lineup since all of the women were there. Remember when everyone was all: will it be Kiki or Tilda in "Best Actress"? I wish the EFA had a higher profile just to give Dunst another boost and get back into the Oscar conversation.
More after the jump including actors, composers, and dreamy unsettling production design.
ACTOR
- Jean Dujardin, The Artist
- Colin Firth, The King's Speech
- Mikael Persbrandt, In a Better World
- Michel Piccoli, We Have a Pope
- André Wilms, Le Havre
Will Dujardin take this on his way to Oscar nomination glory or will Colin Firth's endless coronation continue?
SCREENWRITER
- Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, The Kid With a Bike
- Anders Thomas Jensen, In a Better World
- Aki Kaurismäki, Le Havre
- Lars von Trier, Melancholia
ANIMATED FEATURE
- A Cat in Paris (France/Belgium)
- Chico & Rita (Spain/Isle of Man)
- The Rabbi's Cat (France)
We were just talking about this category. Two of these (A Cat in Paris and Chico & Rita) could be Oscar-nominated this year. Here are the trailers to both...
DOCUMENTARY
- Pina (Germany)
- Position Among the Stars (The Netherlands)
- Vivan Las Antipodas (Int'l)
DISCOVERY (Prix Fipresci)
- Adem (Belgium | The Netherlands)
written and directed by Hans Van Nuffel - Atmen (Austria's Oscar Submission)
wrirten and directed by Karl Markovics - Michael (Austria)
written and directed by Markus Schleinzer - Nothing's All Bad (Denmark)
written and directed by Mikkel Munch-Fals - Tilva Ros (Serbia)
written and directed by Nikola Lezaic
CINEMATOGRAPHER
- Manuel Alberto Claro, Melancholia
- Fred Kelemen, The Turin Horse
- Guillaume Schiffman, The Artist
- Adam Sikora, Essential Killing
In one of the great cinematic turnarounds of our lifetime Lars von Trier's movies went from elaborate visual constructions, to grungey natural light manifestos and now we've lept over the cliff into stunning dreamscape tableaus.
EDITOR
- Tariq Anwar, The King's Speech
- Mathilde Bonnefoy, Drei (Three)
- Molly Malene Stensgaard, Melancholia
An errant nomination for Tom Tykwer's Three. I've been so interested in seeing that movie but it keeps escaping me. Stand still Drei. I'm coming for you!
PRODUCTION DESIGNER
- Paola Bizzarri, We Have a Pope
- Antxón Gómez, The Skin I Live In
- Jette Lehmann, Melancholia
Interesting nominee pile here. Gómez's Frankenstein laboratories and extravagantly meticulous, strange but artful living spaces are wonderful to gaze upon. Though why can't the EFA decide how many people they want in a category: 3,4,5,6?; they can't settle!
COMPOSER
- Ludovic Bource, The Artist
- Alexandre Desplat, The King's Speech
- Alberto Iglesias, The Skin I Live In
- Mihály Vig, The Turin Horse
I wonder if Oscar's notoriously inconsistent music branch will object to Bource's (The Artist) outsourcing of classic film scores or if he'll get an easy nomination for the great soundscape which relies so much on his work? Though it'd be thrilling to see Iglesias get an Oscar nomination for one of his best scores ever in The Skin I Live In, will Oscar really take notice? The more attention the score gets the better for his chances, so well done EFA committee.
EFA's PEOPLES CHOICE AWARD
previously discussed
- Animals United (German)
- Even the Rain (Spain)
- In a Better World (Denmark)
- The King's Speech (UK)
- Little White Lies (France)
- Potiche (France)
- Unknown (int'l)
- Welcome to the South (Italy)
Answer Me These Questions Three...
Will they embrace Cannes official persona non grata Lars von Trier in a big way?
Do you think Almodóvar's horror film can win any year-end love on these shores?
Will The King's Speech own the night again, glamouring the voters with its undead stare and mysterious vocalizations?
The European Film Awards will take place on December 3rd in Berlin this year. On a scale of 1 to 10 how much would you like to be there?