First 3 International Feature Submissions for the 95th Oscars

by Nathaniel R

The incredible Tang Wei stars in Park Chan-wook's "Decision to Leave"

Finally some news on the Best International Feature Film Oscar race. It's the most exciting for us to track since you really have to play along to be in the know.  Earlier today we told you about the possibilities from Israel (they always select the winner of the Ophir... unless they can't for eligibilty reasons) and we also have our first three official submissions. They are...

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Interview: "Girl Picture" director Alli Haapasalo

By Ben Miller

I was fortunate enough to speak with director Alli Haapasalo about her Sundance World Cinema winner Girl Picture which was my favourite from the festival. The coming of age picture about three young women opens in select theaters tomorrow. We talked about female friendships in film, sex scenes, and changing your title to ensure people don’t think you made a film about strippers.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

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Doc Corner: Melbourne International Film Festival shows documentary’s many different forms

By Glenn Dunks

Two years ago (!) I mourned the absence of my local film festival. After another year off in 2021 due to Melbourne’s pandemic lockdowns, the Melbourne International Film Festival has finally returned to theatres this month. It has been such a wonderful feeling to sit down and watch films with other movielovers that we will quite likely never have another opportunity to see projected so big.

The festival runs for another week and a half yet, but let's talk about a few of the documentary titles screened so far. They are all extremely different and formally bold takes on the medium that deserve celebrating. From an experimental tour of America to an equally experimental tour of the human body, these have all been films I can't imagine having missed in the cinema. They won't get a sniff of Oscar buzz, but who cares?

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2022 Ophir Nominees include dramedy "Karaoke" and animated "Where is Anne Frank?"

by Nathaniel R

the marital dramedy "Karaoke" might become Israel's Oscar submission

Israel's annual film awards, the Ophirs, are very hard to track. The nominations were announced yesterday but we're still searching for a full list of nominees since their website is in Hebrew (I think this is the list). Online media is historically terrible about providing full lists of nominations for anything outside Hollywood, usually opting for a couple of paragraphs about the top prize only. Such is the case this year. The only online article available at the time I'm writing this is from the Jerusalem Post which, true to form, lists only the Best Picture contenders. IMDb only lists two categories at this writing. But we finally found a list. The translation was computer generated so there may be a few errors and it reads a bit messy. Have patience.

The Best Picture nominees (one of which will become the Oscar submission)...

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2022 Emmy Category Analysis: Limited Series, Directing/Writing

by Nathaniel R

the riveting intriguing 1st episode of Station Eleven, "Wheel of Fire"

It's difficult to talk stats and predictions with the Limited Series categories since they've gone through so many identity shifts and upheavals in the past dozen years or so. For example, TV Movies are still eligible to compete for writing and directing prizes right here BUT they almost never do while TV Movies have always had their own top category BUT they used to be able to compete directly with limited series instead IF they were movie-length episodes of an Anthology Series. Confusing!  Let it suffice to say that there is only a little data that applies when predicting given frequent rule changes and the more Oscar-like shifts in eligibility since you can't usually honor the same things year after year. So we (mostly) have to go on pure feeling. And that's more fun anyway, so it's all good.

Let's discuss/predict...

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