TIFF '24: "Misericordia" interrogates the meaning of mercy

by Cláudio Alves

When talking about the four French Oscar finalists, one point of the quartet felt perpetually overlooked. Much was said about Emilia Pérez, the eventual selection, and plenty of discussion on All We Imagine as Light, its international provenance and potential as an unlikely Indian or Luxembourgian submission. Then, of course, there was the big-budget wannabee blockbuster of the lot, a new Count of Monte Cristo adaptation that secured US distribution and announced a fortuitous late-year release date hours before Audiard's musical stole its thunder. In the middle of all this commotion, Alain Guiraudie's Misericordia slipped by unnoticed. A shame, since it's one of the year's most beguiling films…

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TIFF '24: "Else" and "U Are the Universe" find Love in the Apocalypse

by Cláudio Alves

For a body horror nightmare, ELSE can be surprisingly beautiful.

It says something about the state of the world, or, at the very least, the collective mood, that the apocalypse is a prevalent concept among contemporary artists. At TIFF this year, several films tackled this fatalistic topic head-on, exploring cosmic dereliction through a litany of genres and registers, from high-budget passion projects to indie experiments. Last time, I broached the topic of Joshua Oppenheimer's divisive narrative feature debut, The End. Now, it's time for two other examples. There's Thibault Emin's feature-length adaptation of a pandemic short, Else. Secondly, an unexpected sci-fi proposition from Ukraine of all places, Pavlo Ostrikov's U Are the Universe. Both are love stories of sorts…

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TIFF '24: "Grand Tour" confirms Miguel Gomes has the Magic Touch

by Cláudio Alves

Some directors wish to transcend the artform they practice. Watching their creations, one senses a force pressing upon you, pushing toward a prescribed and somewhat contradicting immersion. Their hands are forever busy, guiding the viewer away from the theater, from their awareness of the cinematic device. Such artists want you to forget you're watching a film. They beckon surrender, but not to cinema. Instead it's to their story, their vision, sometimes their message. And there's nothing wrong with this approach. But there's nothing right either, not necessarily. I know I fell in love with cinema because of its particularities, not in spite of them. So, I don't wish to forget or abstract myself from the lot. Maybe that's why I adore the cinema of Miguel Gomes as I do. 

Regard his filmography and you may realize he is the antithesis of those other cineastes. Moreover, Gomes is all the better for it. If you want proof, look no further than Grand Tour, for which the Portuguese filmmaker won a well-deserved Best Director prize at Cannes…

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Best International Film: Meet the Portuguese Finalists

by Cláudio Alves

THE BURITI FLOWER is one of Portugal's five finalists.

As the Best International Film Oscar race starts to take shape, the Portuguese Academy has begun the process of choosing the country's official submission. This year's selection committee was composed of nine individuals, all of whom work in the Portuguese film industry. The group ranged from directors to a distributor, encompassing actors, producers, a writer, and even a cinematographer. They include Cristèle Alves Meira, the Listen director who won gold two years ago in Venice; Luís Gaivão Teles, whose documentation of the 1974 Revolution is a precious historical artifact; and DP José Tiago whose filmography contains the Meryl Streep-led The House of the Spirits and our first-ever Oscar submission, Manhã Submersa. 

They have selected five features in hopes of breaking Portugal's unfortunate record, but it's now up to the Portuguese Academy membership to vote on the final choice. Will we stop being the country with the most submissions without a single nomination? Oh well, hope is everlasting. In any case, let's meet the finalists…

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The first Best International Film submissions are here!

by Cláudio Alves

THE DEVIL'S BATH (2024) Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala
And just like that, we're off to the races. Though the 97th Academy Awards are still half a year away, the deadline for countries to submit titles for the Best International Film category is much closer. Nations have until October 4th to choose their representative feature, which must have enjoyed a minimum seven-day theatrical release before the September 30th deadline. Considering those timeframes, it's expected that the next few months will be full of submission news as the world prepares for a cinematic Olympics of sorts. This year, Ireland and Austria are the first countries to announce their official Oscar contenders…

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