Interview: Ofir Raul Grazier on his Oscar hopeful "The Cakemaker"

An abridged version of this interview was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

Ofir Raul GrazierThe Oscars are coming and with them, renewed attention for some of the year’s most memorable films. One of this past summer’s sleeper hits was The Cakemaker, an LGBT drama that’s just been released on DVD / Blu-Ray. The tiny but prolific distributor Strand Releasing, who have released many gay favorites, have been in business for almost 30 years now and, if you don’t adjust for inflation, The Cakemaker quietly turned into their biggest box office hit ever this summer. The drama about a grieving gay German man who seeks out the widow of his lover (who was unaware of her husband’s affair) earned nearly a million at arthouse box offices across the U.S!

After winning Best Picture at the Ophir Awards in Israel, it became the country's submission for Oscar’s Best Foreign Language Film category. We recently caught up with its director Ofir Raul Grazier. Our interview follows, edited for clarity and length.

NATHANIEL: The Cakemaker is your feature debut. Was that terrifying for you or totally natural on set? 

OFIR RAUL GRAIZER: It was a bit scary, of course, because the amount of responsibility is huge. The producers,  the crew, the actors --  I was thinking about all of that more than the film itself. But once the camera was rolling it felt quite natural. I love to do this. This is my passion. I managed to enjoy shooting. Everything between the shots was a nightmare [Laughs]...

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Golden Horse Winners (including "Shadow") and Fashions!

by Nathaniel R

Ang Lee and Andy Lau cheering on the winners

The Golden Horse Awards had a truly spread the wealth kind of year with no film dominating - all five of the Best Film nominees won multiple times. Though it didn't win the most statues, the four hour drama Elephant Sitting Still took Best Picture. Zhang Yimou took Best Director for Shadow (reviewed) and the film won three other technical prizes, leading the win tally. It probably helped that Yimou had his long time former muse, the goddess Gong Li, presiding over the jury but you can excuse those Huppert judging Haneke at Cannes style situations when it comes to the greatest director/muse pairings and Gong Li and Zhang Yimou are certainly on the all-time list. If you're unfamiliar with their work together watch any of their eight collaborations -- I'm most partial to Ju Dou or Raise the Red Lantern personally -- and be floored.

Best Actress Gowns!

The winners, a few gifs, and red carpet fashions are after the jump...

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Can You Ever Retweet Me?

Tweets!

The dog in Widows is named Olivia. The real, credited name of the dog in Game Night is Olivia. Is it... is it the same dog? pic.twitter.com/zU787tQhwG

— kateyrich (@kateyrich) November 16, 2018

 A semi-weekly curated collection of tweets for your seconds-long amusement. After the jump Julianne Moore, Tom Hardy, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez memes, Widows, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Gone Girl, Fantastic Beasts 2, Beetlejuice and more...

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Posterized: Rosamund Pike

by Nathaniel R

Pike earlier this month in LAYou can see Rosamund Pike's acclaimed performance as a war journalist in A Private War today in movie theaters -- the movie's now gone wide. Pike, who is 39, was born in Hammersmith London, the only child of musician parents. We've been fans of Pike since her slyly terrific work in An Education (2009). Though she's headlined one huge hit (Gone Girl) it still seems like she's waiting for that one role / star vehicle to cement those career gains, and make people remember her name, doesn't it? If you were her agent or management what would you be fighting for right about now? I know I'd immediately put the kabosh on 'the girl' in male-driven action ensemble pictures and fight for more complex female leads -- why not another play? She hasn't been onstage in quite a while.

I'd also be looking for a drama which flirts with mysterious woman elements to capitalize on her Gone Girl fame and her sometimes deliciously remote aura without attempting to recreate that film. Just make sure it's a juicy role because she's up to the task. 

After the jump all the posters from her feature film filmography. How many have you seen? And did you remember that she was in them (since you probably saw a few before Gone Girl!) 

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The Spirit Award Nominations are Here

by Nathaniel R

Gemma Chan (Crazy Rich Asians) and former Spirit Award winner Molly Shannon (Other People) announced the Spirit nominations for the 2018 film year. No film truly dominated the announcement because, while We the Animals led with 5 nominations (YAYYYY) it wasn't nominated in the top category. Eighth Grade, First Reformed, and You Were Never Really Here each had 4 nominations. The highest profile expected contenders with not so great results this morning were BlacKkKlansman (only Adam Driver was recognized) and Can You Ever Forgive Me? (the Screenplay and Richard E Grant only). 

so happy for this little gem!

An important note before the full list of nominees: Unlike other major awards bodies, film festival releases are (sometimes) eligible here, overseas films even if they're in english are (mostly) ineligible outside of foreign film, and anything over a $20 million budget is (usually) ineligible here, so the eligibility pool is slightly different. Some examples of 'not eligible' this year for those reasons are: The Hate U Give and Beautiful Boy (too expensive) The Rider (festivals and nominated last year), Roma and The Favorite (both foreign film only though The Favourite led the Gotham nods). The Spirit Awards has multiple nominating committees assigned to different categories. Even better they meet several times throughout the fall before selecting the nominees which is, we think, why the nominations sometimes have a better spread of titles (in terms of release dates) than the Oscars do.

The full list of nominees along with a few comments are after the jump...

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