European Film Awards: Festival Darlings score big in the Craft Categories

Cláudio Alves

Last month, the European Film Academy announced their nominations in the above-the-line categories, with The Zone of Interest and Fallen Leaves in the lead. Now, it was a time for the winners of their craft prizes, also known as the Excellence Awards. These honors are decided by a jury of eight from a pool of selected titles, and this year, there was some double-dipping afoot. Both The Promised Land and Society of the Snow scored two prizes, while the remaining awards were divided among pictures that premiered in competition at Cannes – Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest, La Chimera, and Club Zero…

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NYFCC Winners: "Killers," Nolan, Rogowski, and more!

by Cláudio Alves

The first major critics award of the season is upon us in the form of the New York Film Critics Circle. Killers of the Flower Moon was the big favorite, scoring two wins in Best Film and Actress, while a couple of other productions also won themselves a pair of prizes. Oppenheimer and May December were warmly embraced by the New York set, as was Franz Rogowski, whose Best Actor victory is this year's biggest surprise. The multiple winners and lack of disclosed runners-up means many of the season's hottest titles were left empty-handed. They include Maestro, Poor Things, Barbie, and The Zone of Interest, which many pegged as likely darlings among critics. Time will tell if other groups take the NYFCC's lead.

Though these things aim to celebrate cinema, one must recognize their fame as Oscar predictors. With that in mind, let's delve into numbers and trivia, history and percentages galore, as one explores this year's complete list of winners…

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Hello, Gorgeous: Best Actress of 2022

A new series by Juan Carlos Ojano

“WHO IS SHE?”, a philosopher named RuPaul once asked.

As with that question, character introductions are vital in storytelling. First impressions are usually given importance right from the page, as those will establish our relationship with said characters. Screenwriters strategize on how they describe a character when they enter the story. Likewise, directors pay attention to how characters enter the story for the first time. Whether those entrances become consistent with the rest of the character or are ultimately subverted as the narrative unfolds even further, they matter a lot. 

Since it is a truth universally acknowledged that Best Actress is perhaps the single most important category in the long history of the Academy Awards, particularly in the lives of its (mostly gay) fans who worship actresses to the ends of the earth, this new series will be focusing on how each of the five Best Actress-nominated performances were introduced in their respective films. Narrative functions, filmmaking decisions, emotional implications, and stray observations included...

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Gotham Awards 2023: De Niro Censored and Gladstone Crowned

by Cláudio Alves

With the Gotham Awards ceremony, the season is officially underway. It was a night marked by studio intrusions into a space heretofore reserved for indie filmmaking, a "spread the wealth" attitude, and one controversy. When introducing a prize to Killers of the Flower Moon, Robert De Niro found his speech censored – presumably by Apple – but that didn't stop him from saying everything he had in mind. As soon as the video package wrapped, De Niro made sure to read his original text, complete with anti-Trump sentiment and John Wayne shade.

Some surprising results included a victory for A.V. Rockwell's A Thousand and One over Past Lives in the Breakthrough Director category, though the Celine Song film still took home the night's biggest prize. On the acting front, Charles Melton won Outstanding Supporting Performance for May December and charmed the whole room, while Lily Gladstone took the Lead Performance prize for The Unknown Country. Even when she's not representing Martin Scorsese's latest, voters are eager to recognize the actress…

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Golden Horse Awards 2023

by Nathaniel R

Ang Lee congratulates the Best Actor winner at the Golden Horse Awards. Image via Golden Horse instagram.

While Stonewalling, a drama about a pregnant flight attendant had the least amount of nominations of the "Best Narrative Feature" contenders (just 3), it emerged with the big win this past weekend in Taipei. (You can stream the film on Criterion Channel in the US). Curiously the big winner in terms of number of prizes was Old Fox, which wasn't nominated for Best Feature though it took Best Director and three other prizes. Another curiousity: none of the acting winners were from Best Feature nominees. The winners and a few of their trailers are after the jump...

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