Interview: Laura Wandel on working with child actors in Belgium's Oscar finalist 'Playground'

by Nathaniel R

This season's finalist list for the Best International Feature Film Oscar is a mixture of international icons (Farhadi! Sorrentino!), legends in the making (Hamaguchi! Trier!) and rising auteurs (everyone else). Four of the films are even directorial debuts. Imagine being shortlisted for the Oscar on your first movie! That's what's happened to Belgium's Laura Wandel.

The 37 year old filmmaker had been making short films since 2007. After her 2014 short Les corps éstrangers competed at Cannes, it was time to make the leap to features. The result, which was tabled for a time due to pandemic delays, was the moving bullying drama Playground about a brother and sister struggling in school. We were delighted to speak to Wandel shortly after her moving film made the finals...

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Interview: The Director of 'Lunana' on making the Oscar finals, working with yaks, and meeting Ang Lee

by Nathaniel R

Making movies is never "easy" but some movies achieve the impossible. Pawo Chonyning Dorji's debut feature, the Bhutanese Oscar finalist Lunana A Yak in the Classroom, is one of the latter kind. Its very existence is a miracle, and that's before you even get to the lottery-ticket like good fortune of competing for the Oscar. While Bhutan has a growing local film and television industry, heavily influenced by the films of Bollywood, the pictures are mostly low budget and don't travel outside of the small landlocked country. They definitely don't travel anywhere near the mountainous village where Lunana A Yak in the Classroom takes place, since there is no electricity let alone a movie theater. The charming soulful movie is about a restless young teacher named Ugyen (first time actor Sherab Dorji) who dreams of moving to Australia to pursue a music career. He very reluctantly accepts a final teaching gig to complete his government contract but that assignment is in the most remote part of all Bhutan.

Setting a story there is one thing, filming there without electricity with cast and crew of first timers -- some of whom had never even seen a movie -- is another.  We had the pleasure of talking to the director about his miracle Oscar contender and why he made it and our interview follows after the jump...

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Punditry Madness! Team Experience joins in...

So dear readers, I've been having meetings with the team and they all wanted to join in on the Oscar prediction fun. So before the traditional charts on the Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, and Best International Feature Film pages you can see what each participating team member is predicting. It's fascinating to note the variety of opinions despite the fact that we're now late in the season. 

BEST PICTURE / BEST DIRECTOR
Though Power of the Dog is leading with 11/13 #1 placements (and all #1 placements in Best Director), there are still Belfast holdouts. Ben & Chris think Branagh's personal passion project still has some Oscar oomph in it...

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10th Annual Team Experience Award NOMINEES

From the Team...

Which movie does the Film Experience team like the best? Paul, Phil and Maria are all anxiously awaiting.Few people love awards as much as The Film Experience team does. That’s why we can’t resist having our own awards announcement. The 10th Annual Team Experience Awards nominations have been revealed. These nominees were voted on by all the writers at The Film Experience, sans Nathaniel (who will be revealing his own Film Bitch Awards separately). Three movies dominated our ballots, receiving 10 votes apiece – Dune, The Power of the Dog  and West Side Story. The team will be voting on the winners, which will be revealed next Wednesday, January 25th.

Check out the nominees after the jump...

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National Society of Film Critics picks "Drive My Car"

by Nathaniel R

The National Society of Film Critics, founded in 1966, is one of the three most prestigious critics group in the US, alongside NYFCC and LAFCA (and sharing some members from each). The society works with the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress as well as providing the American delegate to  FIPRESCI, the international federation of members of the film press. This year, of their nine regular awards, only two (Cinematography and Supporting Actress) went to English language films which is we suspect record international dominance (77%) even though the group has always liked international films.  Here are their awards this year...

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