Thursday, November 12, 2020 at 7:00PM by Nathaniel R
Apologies that in this week where we've been doing such a fine job covering international cinema news what will all the Oscar submission daily stuff, that we missed the EFA nominations. "OOPS-HOWD-THAT- HAPPEN?" in all caps. The nominees and commentary are after the jump. If we've written about the film there are links...
Thursday, November 12, 2020 at 4:41PM By Glenn Dunks
Documentaries have been popping up more and more in the line-ups for Best International Feature (née Best Foreign Language Film) since Cambodia snagged a remarkably unlikely nomination for The Missing Picture. Last year’s double-whammy nomination for Honeyland in both the international and documentary categories (from an equally unexpected country, North Macedonia) has no doubt emboldened national selectors to choose non-fiction titles, which I am certainly happy about.
Three such selections are playing DOC NYC, the New York documentary festival that opened its virtual doors yesterday. It may be too early to see what the Best International Feature category delivers us this year (as of right now the number of submissions sits at 43), but the three films here representing Kenya, Romania, and Venezuela are all strong and fine contenders. In fact, there is at least one title here that I reckon could deliver for its home country—one that has been routinely ‘snubbed’ by the category, so much so that they changed the rules. Could this be their year for redemption with one of the best movies of 2020?
Thursday, November 12, 2020 at 1:20PM by Nathaniel R
This year's Gotham Awards have fully embraced the female gaze. In fact, the entire Best Feature nominee list is female-helmed films with First Cow leading with 4 nominations. Unfortunately that means Lee Isaac Chung's Minari was shut out for the top prize (it only received one acting nomination), which is a shame but you can't have everything. Though the Gotham Awards are not a traditional "precursor" to Oscar (they rarely align) we tend to like that kind of precursor best. Groups with their own personality are the only ones that have a reason to exist!
Full nomination list with a few comments after the jump...
Thursday, November 12, 2020 at 11:02AM by Nathaniel R
The Norwegian Film Institute has selected Maria Sødahl's cancer drama Hope to represent them at the Oscars. The film stars Bræn Hovig and the ever-ubiquitous Stellan Skarsgård (who works as often in Scandinavia as he does in Hollywood, which is to say, a lot) as the couple thrown by a terrible diagnosis. Hope was selected over two other finalists which were: Disco by Jorunn Myklebust Syversen about a young girl mixed up with a Christian cult (which we reviewed at TIFF last fall), and Margreth Olin's documentary The Self Portrait about an acclaimed photographer struggling with anorexia. (Olin was submitted 11 years ago for her second narrative feature Angel though she's primarily a documentarian.)
1987 Norwegian nominee "Pathfinder"Norway has been perpetually overshadowed by Sweden and Denmark in terms of the cinema. They have a smaller film industry than their Scandinavian neighbors but the other problem is a noticeable lack of internationally-adored auteurs. We hoped that the rise of Joachim Trier would change that but, alas, the Oscars aren't helping in that regard as he's been submitted twice from his three Norwegian language films and the Academy passed both times.
Oscar stats and great Norwegian films after the jump...
Thursday, November 12, 2020 at 9:00AM 9 random things that happened on this day, November 12th, in showbiz history...
1880 Lew Wallace's novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is published. It was the best-selling American novel of all time (for awhile). The film adaptation in 1959 won 11 Oscars, a feat that's never been bested though Titanic and Return of the King later tied its haul.
1946 Disney's Song of the South has its world premiere in Atlanta, Georgia. Disney has long since hidden it from view though it was celebrated in its time, winning one competitive and one Honorary Oscar
More after the jump including Penelope Pussycat, Julie Andrews, and Ryan Gosling...
