Massive Awards Roundup: "Movies for Grown-Ups", EFA, BIFA, Astra

by Nathaniel R

Image of the nominees for BIFA's "INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM", all but one of which are also up for the top prize at EFA

The Thanksgiving holidays are typically the busiest screening times for awards voters who aren't Academy members. Many of the big mainstream groups as well as the regional critics awards will be cramming movies in before their December announcements. (Academy voters can of course wait for the Christmas break to catch up before their ballots are due) Naturally then some groups vote yet earlier than Thanksgiving because so many love to be "first" and December is all-announcements-all-the-time. So here are four groups that announced in November: BIFA, EFA, AARP, and HCA. Given their different purviews (British Films, European Films, mostly American Films with a focus on film artists of a certain age, mostly American films with a focus on Oscar buzz) there's not a ton of overlap across all four. But the two buzziest International Oscar contenders Sentimental Value and It Was Just An Accident  were honored by all four groups even if it was just a single nomination from BIFA for both).

Let's start with the 50+ set before moving to Europe and back to Hollywood...

AARP'S "MOVIES FOR GROWN-UPS"

TRAIN DREAMS © NetflixFilm: 

• Hamnet
• House of Dynamite
• One Battle After Another
• Sinners
• Train Dreams 

The most interesting thing about this list is that Train Dreams made it. We thought it might need more time to build a fanbase but perhaps it's growing fast and Academy voters will embrace en masse?  

Director:

• PT Anderson (One Battle After Another)
• Kathryn Bigelow (House of Dynamite)
• Scott Cooper (Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere)
• Guillermo Del Toro (Frankenstein)
• Spike Lee (Highest 2 Lowest)

The directors list looks strange until you remember that AARP only honors people over 50 so Chloe Zhao, Ryan Coogler, and Clint Bentley (who all helmed nominees in their Best Film list) were ineligible. But wait it still looks strange. How is Scott Cooper here? His direction of the Springsteen bio was agonizingly monotone, as if he was just refusing to let any joy (even of creativity!) sneak in. There were plentiful auteurs to choose from: Noah Baumbach, Jafar Panahi, Park Chan Wook, Gus Van Sant, Kleber Mendonça Filho, James Cameron, Richard Linklater x 2. 

Actress

• Laura Dern (Is This Thing On?)
• Jodie Foster (Vie Privee)
• Lucy Liu (Rosemead)
• Julia Roberts (After the Hunt)
• June Squibb (Eleanor the Great)

Something of an expected list given that this is literally every woman over 50 who is on the Oscar prediction chart (any tier). But pour one out for 80 year old Kathleen Chalfant who received rave reviews for Familiar Touch. It's surely missing because the AARP is not the Gothams or Spirits and is generally only know about higher profile movies.

Actor

• George Clooney (Jay Kelly)
• Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another)
• Joel Edgerton (Train Dreams)
• Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon)
• Dwayne Johnson (The Smashing Machine)

This is not good news for Denzel Washington's (Highest 2 Lowest) Oscar appeal this season since they nominated his director. It's not that "Movies for Grown-Ups" is influential as an awards show so much as it is surely at least a minor reflection of what voters of a certain age might actually be thinking about this awards season; a huge swath of Academy members are over 50. It's extremely aggravating that they didn't stretch enough to include Lee Byung-Hun (No Other Choice) even though they voted for the movie in their International Film category. but I've already come to grips that people will keep ignoring how sensational this star turn is because people are often dumb about subtitled performances. Other men who could have theoretically been nominated here were: Hugh Jackman, Brad Pitt, Brendan Fraser, Ralph Fiennes, Benicio Del Toro, and Daniel Craig. 

Supporting Actress

• Regina Hall (One Battle After Another)
• Amy Madigan (Weapons)
• Helen Mirren (Goodbye June)
• Gwyneth Paltrow (Marty Supreme)
• Sigourney Weaver (Avatar: Fire and Ash)

Happy to see Madigan. The omission of Glenn Close for Wake Up Dead Man is the most surprising thing. Overall, I suspect this this is lazy voting, though I'll apologize for saying so if Avatar 3 and Goodbye June actually have two award worthy performances. Otherwise there's just no way to take this list seriously when Nina Hoss (Hedda) Youn Yu-Jeun (The Wedding Banquet), and Emily Watson (Hamnet) were all right there for the taking and just fantastic in their films. They could have even gone with Jennifer Lopez (Kiss of the Spider-Woman) if they wanted to stick closer to the mainstream awards conversation, long-shots division.

Supporting Actor

• Benicio Del Toro (One Battle After Another)
• Delroy Lindo (Sinners)
• Sean Penn (One Battle After Another)
• Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value)
• Michael Shannon (Nuremberg) 

You might spot that Adam Sandler's buzzy scene-stealing work in Jay Kelly is noticeably absent. Never fear: they're honoring him with a career achievement award instead. The absentee that surprises me a little (given that they loved the film) is William H Macy who is really special in just two or three scenes in Train Dreams. Perhaps it's a problem of limited screentime. Most awards bodies just don't think you're worth mentioning anymore unless your screen time is enormous... a natural consequences of co-leads being demoted to supporting consistently since the early 1990s. 

(I was about to complain about Andrew Scott's absence for Blue Moon but realized he just turned 49 so there's one more year until he's "Movies for Grown-Up" eligible.) 

Here's the full list of their nominees (along with blurbs about why they nominated them) in several other categories.

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS

The hot films at the European Film Awards are not a surprise, though arguably their degree of dominance was. Spain and Norway's Oscar submissions Sirât and Sentimental Value led all titles with 9 nominations each. Germany's Sound of Falling was just behind with 8 nominations and EFA regular Yorgos Lanthimos' latest Bugonia managed 6 nods despite not showing up in Best European Feature (see notes below). It Was Just An Audience is surely a threat for wins despite being well behind with 4 nominations. Though it didn't  make the top category, Poland's Oscar submission Franz (a biopic about the legendary Czech writer Franz Kafka) managed to land in three categories including Best Actor for the screen debut of Germany's Idan Weiss. 

Film

• Afternoons of Solitude (Spain/France) - a documentary
• Arco (France) - a possible Animated Feature contender at the Oscars
• Dog of God -Latvia's Oscar submission.
• Fiume O Morte!- Croatian's Oscar submission. a documentary 
• It Was Just An Accident - France's Oscar submission.
• Little Amelie (France) -  - a possible Animated Feature contender at the Oscars
• Olivia and the Invisible Eathquakes (Spain, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Chile) - will it be eligible in Oscar's Animated Feature? 
• Reifenstahl (Germany) - a documentary
• Sentimental Value - Norway's Oscar submission
• Sirât - Spain's Oscar submission
• Sound of Falling - Germany's Oscar submission
• Tales from the Magic Garden -(Czech Republic) - will it be eligible in Animated Feature? 
• The Voice of Hind Rajab - Tunisia's Oscar submission
• With Hasan in Gaza (Germany) - a documentary 

This 15 wide category (under new rules) includes literally 90% of the nominees for Animated Feature Film and Documentary nominees which seems silly since it makes them almost all double nominees and makes the category enormous. It also seems to preference them OVER narrative features somehow -- we're unsure how votes are calculate. How else could they be so equally represented. Or are we really to believe that Tales from the Magic Garden and With Hasan in Gaza, to cite two random examples (not judging their quality), received more votes than Bugonia (which has several nominations from an EFA favourite) or  Duse, Franz, Late Shift, Case 137, La Grazia, Die My Love, Love Me Tender (which all have other EFA nominations -- sometimes more than one -- but are excluded from the Best European Film nominees)? Are we also to believe that Norway's Berlinale winner Dreams or the UK's Pillion (which have both been very well received) couldn't even make a top 15 in the voting? 

So the break down of the top category becomes 6 narrative live-action features, 5 animated features, and 4 documentaries. Is this really how the votes broke down? The reason we don't believe it is that Documentary Feature and Animated Features ARE eligible for Best Picture at the Oscars but none of the former and only a few of the latter have ever made the Best Picture category. This is not to say that Europeans are the same as Americans but are members of the European Film Academy really hundreds of times more enthralled with animation and documentaries??? It seems doubtful to this cinephile.

Regardless of who takes the prize --chances are good that the winner will be superior to last year's winner Emilia Perez. 

Animated Film

• Arco
• Dog of God
• Little Amelie
• Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake
• Tales of the Magic Garden

All but one are also eligible for the Best Animated Feature Film Oscar. The odd film out is Tales of the Magic Garden. 

Documentary  

• Afternoons of Solitude
• Fiume O Morte!
• Riefenstahl
• Songs of Slow Burning Earth - the only one of the animated or documentary nominees that's not double-nominated via the European Film category so we feel a little bad for it. 
• With Hasan in Gaza 

The first three films are also eligible for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar this season. Songs of Slow Burning Earth and With Heaven in Gaza are not. 

Audience Award

• Christy (UK/Ireland)
• Deaf (Spain)
• Love Me Tender (France)
• It Was Just an Accident 
• Sentimental Value 

Director

• Yorgos Lanthimos (4th nomination, 1 win) - Bugonia
• Jafar Panahi (1st nomination) -  It Was Just An Accident
• Joachim Trier (1st nomination) - Sentimental Value
• Oliver Laxe (1st nomination) - Sirât
• Mascha Schilinski (1st nomination) - Sound of Falling

Those stats are from the Directing category only. Lanthimos is of course an EFA magnet. He won for The Favourite.  Joachim Trier was surprisingly NOT nominated for the direction of Worst Person in the World. Since only six narrative features made the top category that means that the director who was left out of this category was the director of The Voice of Hind Rajab.  

Actress

• Leonie Benesch (2nd nomination)  -Late Shift (Switzerland's Oscar submission)
• Lea Drucker (1st nomination) -Case 137 (France)
• Vicky Krieps (2nd nomination, 1 win)  - Love Me Tender (France)
• Renate Reinsve (2nd nomination, 1 win) - Sentimental Value (Norway's Oscar submission)
• Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (4th nomination) - Duse (Italy/France)

They leaned heavily towards French films this time. Krieps (Corsage) and Reinsve (Worst Person in the World) are both previous EFA winners. Drucker, a César winner for Custody, is the only first-time nominee in this lineup.

Actor

• Sergi Lopez (3rd nomination, 1 win) - Sirât (Spain's Oscar submission)
• Mads Mikkelsen (6th nom, 1 win) - The Last Viking (Denmark)
• Toni Servillo (4th nom, 2 wins) - La Grazia (Italy)
• Stellan Skarsgård (4th nom) - Sentimental Value (Norway's Oscar submission)
• Idan Weiss (1st nomination) - Franz (Poland's Oscar submission)

Twenty-eight year old Idan Weiss is making his feature debut as Franz Kafka in Poland's Oscar submission. The rest of the lineup are favourites with the EFAs.

Screenwriter

• Santiago Filol & Oliver Laxe - Sirât
• Jafar Panahi - It Was Just An Accident
• Mascha Schilinki & Louise Peter - Sound of Falling
• Paolo Sorrentino - La Grazia
• Eskil Voght & Joachim Trier - Sentimental Value 

Cinematographer

THE STRANGER

• Mauro Herce - Sirât
• Fabian Gamper - Sound of Falling (Germany)
• Manu Dacosse - The Stranger (France)

Editor

• Yorgos Mavropsaridis - Bugonia
• Toni Froschhammer - Die My Love
• Cristóbal Fernández - Sirât

Production Designer

• James Price - Bugonia
• Jørgen Stangeby Larsen - Sentimental Value
• Laia Ateca - Sirât

Costume Designer 

FRANZ

• Ursula Patsak - Duce
• Michaela Horáčková Horejší - Franz
• Sabrina Krämer - Sound of Falling

Makeup and Hair

• Torsten Witte - Bugonia
• Gabriela Poláková - Franz
• Irinsa Schwarz, Anne-Marie Walther - Sound of Falling

Sound Designer

• Johnnie Burn - Bugonia
• Gwennolé Le Borgne, Marion Papinot, Lars Ginzel, Elias Boughedir, Amal Attian - The Voice of Hind Rajab
• Laia Casanovas - Sirât

Composer

• Jerskin Fendrix - Bugonia
• Hania Rani - Sentimental Value
• Michael Fiedler, Eike Hosenfeld - Sound of Falling

Casting Director

• Yngvill Kolset Haga, Avy Kaufman - Sentimental Value
• Nadia Acimi, Luís Bértolo, María Rodrigo - Sirât
• Karimah El-Giamal, Jacqueline Rietz - Sound of Falling

Young Audience Award 

• Arco (France)
• I Accidentally Wrote a Book (Hungary/Netherlands)
• Siblings (Italy)

Discovery

• Little Trouble Girls -Slovenia's Oscar Submission
• My Father's Shadow -UK's Oscar Submission
• On Falling (UK/Portugal)
• One of These Days When Hemme Dies - Turkey's Oscar Submission
• Sauna (Denmark)
• Under the Grey Sky (Poland)

Short Film 

• L'Avance (France)
• Being John Smith (UK)
• City of Poets (Netherlands)
• The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing (UK)
• Man No 4 (UK)

Domination from the UK in this category.

And, speaking of the UK, an awards group that announced a while ago but we forgot to mention...

BRITISH FILM INDEPENDENT AWARDS

British Independent Film

PILLION 

• The Ballad of Wallis Island
• I Swear
• My Father's Shadow
• Pillion
• Urchin

Director

• Lynne Ramsay - Die My Love
• Kirk Jones - I Swear
• Akinola Davis Jr - My Father's Shadow
• Laura Carreira - On Falling
• Pillion - Harry Lighton

Lead Performance 

• Jennifer Lawrence - Die My Love
• Robert Aramayo - I Swear
• Harry Melling - Pillion
• Cillian Murphy - Steve
• Frank Dillane - Urchin
• David Jonsson - Wasteman

Joint Lead Performance

• TIm Key / Tom Basden - The Ballad of Wallis Island
• Ebada Hassan / Safiyya Ingar - Brides
• Andrea Riseborough / Brenda Blethyn - Dragonfly 

I love the concept of this award --not that anything will cure Category Fraud at this point.

Supporting Performance 

• Maxine Peake - I Swear
• Peter Mullan - I Swear
• Scott Ellis Watson - I Swear
• Alexander Skarsgård - Pillion
• Jay Lycurgo - Steve
• Tom Blyth - Wasteman 

I Swear hogged a whole 50% of the category ! 

International Independent Film 

• It Was Just An Accident
• Sentimental Value
• Sirât
• Sorry, Baby
• Sound of Falling 

There are many more categories which you can read about here if you're interested.  

Okay one final group...

HCA'S "ASTRA AWARDS"
(HOLLYWOOD CREATIVE ALLIANCE) 

WICKED FOR GOOD

This embattled evolving critics group -- they've gone through three names Los Angeles Online Film Critics and then the Hollywood Critics Society and now the Hollywood Creative Alliance all in the space of the past nine years! --  keeps on ticking. Starting this year they're divvying up their categories like the Golden Globes into Comedy/Musical and Drama but they also have other genre awards! So a lot of ways to be the "best". One Battle After Another led all films with Sinners & Sentimental Value its closest rivals in terms of nomination tally. Good on them for including International Features in both of their main categories. Like other critics groups (they're hardly the only ones guilty of the following) it's always strange and suspect when something is nominated as cream of the year's crop that critics are by and large negative about in their reviews. I'm talking about Wicked For Good landing in one of the Best Picture categories when the reviews have been so negative (67% on Rotten Tomatoes / 58 on MetaCritic). It begs the question why do critics awards not more accurately reflect reviews? It leads you to wonder about groupthink and the problem of most groups wanting to influence and/or predict the Oscar outcomes. When it comes to sounding off on "Best" of the year, influence is a worthy goal while being predictive is certainly not. Predicting is fun but if you name something as "Best" in your own domain that should actually be reflective of your opinion!

Drama

• Frankenstein
• Hamnet
• It Was Just An Accident
• Sentimental Value
• Sinners
• Train Dreams

Comedy or Musical

• Bugonia
• Jay Kelly
• Marty Supreme
• No Other Choice
• One Battle After Another
• Wicked: For Good

Will the Golden Globes agree with these two lists? 

International Feature

NO OTHER CHOICE

• Belen
• It Was Just An Accident
• No Other Choice
• Sentimental Value
• Sirât
• The Secret Agent

They have A LOT of categories so you can read the rest here if you're interested. 

That's all for now. And that's quite enough!

Comments

[Sad Man]

No one in their right mind can nominate Highest 2 Lowest for anything but a Razzie, especially Spike Lee's truly embarrassing (lack of) direction. It's baffling.

[Mr Ripley79]

These are the awards I call "Don't Mean a Thing"