AFI Diary #1: "The Worst Person in the World," and More

Christopher is covering the 2021 AFI Fest Film Festival. Follow along for his reviews.

The 2021 AFI Fest Film Festival began Wednesday, November 10th with the World Premiere of Netflix’s Tick, Tick... Boom! (which got raves from Nathaniel). My festival began on Thursday with three films: one documentary feature, one international Oscar contender and a romantic anthology that had a splashy Cannes debut. It already feels great to be back in-person at a film festival. AFI is doing a hybrid of in person and virtual screenings this year, offering a nice variety for festivalgoers.

Without further ado, the reviews:

The Worst Person In The World (Joachim Trier) - Norway's Official International Feature Film Oscar® Submission...

Click to read more ...

74th Cannes. The Competition Lineup!

by Nathaniel R

The official lineup for the 74th Cannes Film Festival has been announced. It's always an exciting time for cinephiles, doubly so this year since the festival had to be cancelled last season due to COVID-19. This year four actors have multiple films in contention: Tilda Swinton, Charlotte Rampling, Anders Danielsen Lie, and the probably queen of the festival France's Léa Seydoux who has three films in the main competition and another in Un Certain Regard!  We already know that Spike Lee will be presiding over the jury, since he was supposed to do that last year (though we don't know who will be on the jury with him yet).

Cannes has been criticized for years for their lack of gender parity in direction. They're likedly to be criticized again with only 4 of the 24 competition films from female auteurs but that's actually a huge improvement for the world's most famous film festival. As per usual French and English language films dominate though there are actually only three films from the USA in competition this year (Flag Day, The French Dispatch, and Red Rocket) Anyway let's look at the official lineup. More to come since there are other sections, too.

24 Official Competition Films
Who will win the Palme D'Or, Director, and Acting prizes. Care to place any bets?

Click to read more ...