TIFF: A Mother on Trial in ‘Saint Omer’

By Abe Friedtanzer

Last week, France narrowd its list of contenders for the Oscar submission to five. Three of them played at TIFF – One Fine Morning, Paris Memories, and Saint Omer. The last of those has the advantage at the moment thanks to its two prizes at the Venice Film Festival. It’s a difficult, focused drama that deals with motherhood, national identity, and the justice system in France…

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TIFF prizes: The Fabelmans, Weird Al, Black Ice, and more...

by Nathaniel R

The first wave of the bridge festivals, taking us from summer to the fall film season and thereby kicking off the Oscar race have ended with TIFF wrapping hot on the heels of Venice and Telluride. It's time to update the Oscar charts which we're busy with at the moment and will start posting very soon. While you wait for those updates, here are the winners from TIFF. While TIFF is a non-competitive festival unlike the other "big five" festivals (Sundance, Venice, Canes, Berlin) they do have audience awards as well as a few juries for very specific things, just not the main slate. Their "People's Choice" audience awards get a lot of press partially because the winners often go on to Oscar nominations and sometimes wins.

AUDIENCE AWARDS

PEOPLE'S CHOICE: The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg)
runners up: Women Talking (Sarah Polley) and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Rian Johnson)...

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TIFF: Looking for Richard III in ‘The Lost King’

By Abe Friedtanzer

 

Everyone has their “thing,” and some interests are a bit more niche than others. Take Philippa Langley, a writer inspired by her attendance at a staging of Shakespeare’s Richard III to clear the name of the ruler cast as a villain, going so far as to commission a dig that she hopes will reveal his final resting place. Sally Hawkins plays Langley in Stephen Frears’ entertaining and involving The Lost King…

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Belgium's "Close", Venezuela's "The Box" and Israel's "Cinema Sabaya" join the Oscar race

With 43 entries thus far, we're just a few titles short of the halfway mark on submissions for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Oscars. There's usually a little over 90 films. You can see the full submission charts here but if that's too much all at once for you, here are the most recent three countries to announce....

🇦🇲 CLOSE (Lukas Dhont)
BELGIUM (7 nominations and 2 additional finalists from 47 submissions)

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TIFF: Lee Jung-jae’s ‘Hunt’

By Abe Friedtanzer

It’s always interesting to see what a performer, who is already well-regarded in their home country, does in the wake of international success. Lee Jung-jae just made history with his SAG and Emmy wins for his leading role on Squid Game. Last week he was announced as the star of the upcoming Star Wars TV series The Acolyte. It’s more than fair to say that he’s hot right now. That makes his directorial debut, Hunt, which he also wrote and stars in, all the more exciting.

The now internationally famous actor stars as the head of the foreign unit of the KCIA, South Korea’s Central Intelligence Agency. It's the 1980s and a period of deep unrest and an assassination attempt in the United States. Back at home, he finds himself pitted against the head of the domestic unit (played by Jung-jae’s friend and frequent collaborator Jung Woo-sung), both tasked to uncover the identity of a North Korean spy...

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