by Nathaniel R
LITTLE NICHOLAS - HAPPY AS CAN BE (France/Luxembourg)
The European Film Awards announce in lots of small increments for reasons that have never been entirely clear to us. But here we are. So it is today that we learned that Italian Director Marco Bellochio has won Innovation in Storytelling for his miniseries Exterior Night (a follow up to his 2003 feature Goodmorning Night) and full nominations for three categories have been announced including Animated Feature (now updated with winners as of 12/12)...
European Comedy:
THE DIVIDE (France)
- COP SECRET directed by Hannes Þór Halldórsson (Iceland)
- ★ THE GOOD BOSS directed by Fernando León de Aranoa (Spain)
- THE DIVIDE directed by Catherine Corsini (France)
The Good Boss was a finalist for the International Feature Oscar last season (though it wasn't nominated), while The Divide (La Fracture) competed in Cannes this past summer where it won the Queer Palm. It's about two middle aged lesbians (Vaeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Marina Foïs) on the verge of a breakup who are stuck in an hospital in the middle of a protest against the building. Cop Secret is an action comedy.
European Animated Feature Film:
- LITTLE NICHOLAS – HAPPY AS CAN BE directed by Amandine Fredon & Benjamin Massoubre
Traditional Animation. The adventures of a little boy in 1960s Paris. - MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH MARRIAGE directed by Signe Baumane
Traditional Animation. A Latvian woman struggles to conform to expectations in order to be loved. - MY NEIGHBORS' NEIGHBORS directed by Anne-Laure Daffis & Léo Marchand
Traditional Animation. The lives of an French apartment building's residents are explored - ★ NO DOGS OR ITALIANS ALLOWED directed by Alain Ughetto
Stop motion. On an Italian family's history immigrating to France to pursue a better life. - OINK directed by Mascha Halberstad
Stop motion. A Dutch girl gets a pet pig from her grandfather.
This list is always interesting though it rarely fully aligns with the international cartoons that are submitted and deemed eligible for the Oscar in the Academy's parallel category. Still we might see two or three of these on Oscar's longlist for their category. Little Nicholas has the highest profile at this writing given that it won the top prize at the Annecy Festival where it competed against My Love Affair With Marriage and the stop motion feature No Dogs or Italians Allowed.
European Short Film:
- ★ GRANNY'S SEXUAL LIFE directed by Urška Djukič & Émilie Pigeard
5 festival prizes thus far. Slovenian animated short based on the book "Fire, Ass, and Snakes are not toys" - ICE MERCHANTS directed by João Gonzalez
7 festival prizes thus far including Cine Discovery at Cannes. Portuguese animated short about a parachuting family who sell ice in the village below their cliff home. - LOVE, DAD (MILÝ TATI) directed by Diana Cam Van Nguyen
13 festival prizes thus far including AFI last year. Czech documentary short about a girl's correspondence with her father in prison. - TECHNO, MAMA directed by Saulius Baradinskas
3 festival prizes thus far. Lithuanian live action short about a conflict between a other and son around the son's love of techno music and dreams of clubbing in Berlin. - WILL MY PARENTS COME TO SEE ME directed by Mo Harawe
2 festival prizes thus far. Live action short about a Somali policewoman helping an inmate through the bureaucracy of the justice system.
The 35th European Film Awards will be held on December 10th in Reykjavik Iceland this year.