111 days 'til Oscar

Can you believe Germany's WINGS OF DESIRE (1987) was not nominated for Best Foreign Film? It won numerous prizes that year but Oscar skipped it.

According to numerologists 111 is a very powerful number, sometimes called an "angel number" for spiritual guidance. It signifies that a gate of opportunity is opening -- your dreams can become manifest with positive thinking. (Or some such. Don't ask me I'm not a numerologist. I'm just trying to find cute ways to count down to Oscar, okay?)

In other words those current long shot Oscar campaigns need to be harnessing all their positive thinking on this very day! So tell us your #1 dream for Oscar night this coming March 4th. What reality shall you will into being, nomination-wise or statue win? You know mine already. 

26 Films Eligible for Oscar's "Best Animated Feature"

by Nathaniel R

Italy's "Cinderella the Cat" which is aimed at adults

Twenty-six films have been deamed eligible for this year's Animated Feature Oscar competition which means we'll have 5 nominees yet again (only 16 eligible features are required to trigger the maximum category size). The only mild surprise was that Leap!, Nut Job 2, and Spark were not submitted --usually, even if an American picture doesn't have a prayer in hell, the studios will submit it anyway. This year the rules are slighly different for the category as people that aren't within the animated branch can also take part in the nominating process. Consider this year a test to see if this new rule crowds the little seen but artful deserving foreign titles, that the category has become known for, out of the race. We fear that it might though we're currently predicting business as usual (three US pictures, two foreign) anyway...

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Interview: Ferenc Török of "1945" on making a Western about the aftermath of WW2

by Murtada Elfadl

On a summer day in 1945, an Orthodox Jewish man and his grown son return to a village in Hungary while the villagers prepare for the wedding of the town clerk's son. The townspeople – suspicious, remorseful, fearful, and cunning – expect the worst and behave accordingly. The town clerk fears the men may be heirs of the village's deported Jews and expects them to demand their illegally acquired property back.

In the new film 1945 director Ferenc Török tells the story of a society trying to come to terms with the recent horrors they’ve experienced, perpetrated, or just tolerated for personal gain. Based on the short story ‘Homecoming’ by Gábor T. Szántó and shot in gorgeous black and white cinematography, 1945 is a historically detailed drama that plays like a ticking clock Western. We recently spoke to Török in New York.

MURTADA ELFADL: I’m curious about the inception of the project. How did you come about it?

FERENC TÖRÖK: I read the short story by Gabor in 2004. It was visual without too much dialogue, but I thought there wasn’t enough for a feature. The timing especially was good - 1945 in the summer, after the war. It takes place in only a 2-3 hour span of time, like an old greek drama, Antigone or something. Like a western. I’ve always wanted to make a movie in real time with different points of view from different characters like a Robert Altman movie.

You mentioned westerns, I thought of High Noon while watching because of the ticking clock structure...

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European Film Nominations: "The Square" and "On Body and Soul" lead

by Nathaniel R

Hungary's weird and wonderful ON BODY AND SOUL keeps collecting kudosOne of our favorite undersung awards bodies is back. The European Film Awards, a hodgepodge of vastly different cinemas that sometimes has surprising results, have released their nominations for 2017. As per usual they're the awards body with the most in common with Oscar's Foreign Language Film race with many of their nominees being submissions this year from their respective countries. As such it's worth noting that Hungary's dreamscape slaughterhouse romantic oddity On Body and Soul and the Palme D'or winning Swedish satire The Square are both looking strong heading into the Oscar race; they lead the field here, each with four nominations. Russia's Loveless and the latest Yorgos Lanthimos provocation The Killing of a Sacred Deer are just behind them with three nominations, though the latter was a miss in the top category for Best European Film where France's masterful ACT UP drama BPM (Beats Per Minute --  currently in release in the US -- why is noone seeing it? It's brilliant! --  struck instead. 

The ceremony moves each year and this time it will be hosted in Berlin, Germany on December 9th. Full set of nominees (links go to our reviews) including a France heavy Best Actress list are after the jump...

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Interview: Alain Gomis on Why Senegal's Oscar Submission 'Félicité' is a Film About the Modern World

By Jose Solís

The title heroine of Félicité is unlike any film character you’ve met. As played by Véro Tshanda Beya Mputu, she’s both larger than life and an everywoman trying to make a living as a singer in a Kinshasan bar. When her son Samo (Gaetan Claudia) has a devastating motorcycle accident, Félicité is forced to go in a race against time, as she tries to find the money to pay for his treatment. But this is only the first of Félicité’s many plights and before we know it, the film has become a soulful character study in which a woman must learn to accept love from others. If the film sounds like a social drama, it’s only because director Alain Gomis uses that familiar structure to invite us into a world that will seem new to many, but once inside he defies the conventions of genre and traditional plot to convey something more lyrical.

The film has been selected as Senegal’s official Oscar entry and is now playing in select US theaters. I spoke to Gomis during the New York Film Festival, where the film was shown, and learned about his process, and why he thinks his film is a reflection of the modern world. Read the interview after the jump...

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