Interview: Tatiana Huezo on Mexico's Oscar contender "Prayers for the Stolen" (now streaming)

by Nathaniel R

After several shorts and a few documentaries including the highly acclaimed Tempestad, which won her the Best Director Ariel back home in Mexico, filmmaker Tatiana Huezo didn't rest on her laurels. She wanted to take a risk. She set herself an "ambitious challenge" for her first narrative feature, adapting the award winning novel "Prayers for the Stolen" by Jennifer Clement about young girls living in the mountains who are in continual danger of abduction and worse from the cartels.

The risk paid off when her film debuted to immediate praise at Cannes where it won a Special Mention in Un Certain Regard. Prayers for the Stolen, now streaming on Netflix, was then selected as Mexico's Oscar submission for Best International Feature Film. We were privileged to sit down with the director recently to discuss her film and the Oscar race. This interview was conducted with a translator though Tatiana Huezo slipped into English once, with joyful laughter to say "Nooo, it's too much!" when the topic of Oscar submissions came up... 

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SPOILERS: The Endings of "Passing" and "Power of the Dog"

by Deborah Lipp

So, the title says “spoilers.” And it says “endings” which makes “spoilers” somewhat redundant. Stop reading now unless you’ve seen both of these movies.

Okay. Coast is clear...

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FYC: "Flee" for Best Picture

by Matt St Clair

Flee, now playing in limited release, is transcendent. The animated memoir could break records by competing in three Feature categories: Animated Feature, Documentary Feature, and, because it’s the Danish submission, Best International Feature. Both Collective and Honeyland recently made history recently by competing in the latter two categories simultaneously, but no film has found itself in contention for all three. Flee might accomplish this historic feat, but it should go even further by also being nominated for Best Picture.

A nomination would allow the glass ceiling for documentaries to finally break. In the ceremony’s soon-to-be 94-year history, no documentary has ever competed in the top category...

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FYC: "So May We Start" for Best Original Song

by Cláudio Alves

On December 21st, the Academy will announce their shortlists in several categories, including Best Original Song. As usual, some mainstream triumphs feel like locks already, maybe not for the final lineup but certainly the roster of 15 finalists. Even before the movie was released, Billie Eilish had already won a Grammy for her Bond theme, "No Time to Die." Beyoncé seems like an inevitable nominee thanks to King Richard's "Be Alive." As for Lin-Manuel Miranda's work for Encanto, it's never a good idea to bet against Disney. In the midst of it all, the weird glory of Leos Carax's Annette may be forgotten, despite its vast score of original songs by the Sparks (Ron Mael and Russell Mael). Please, dear reader, allow me to make the case for that musical's first and best tune…

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The AFI Top Tens are here - what does it mean?

by Nathaniel R

One of the hit and miss traditions of year-end hoopla is the American Film Institute's Top Ten List. This list, which has a rotating jury, began as something kind of unpredictable but it's been veering towards straight up Oscar Best Picture frontrunners mirroring for some years now. The ten titles they've cited this year are...

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