Golden Horse 2021: The Soul, The Falls, and Drifting lead the nominations

THE FALLSby Nathaniel R

The nominations have been announced for Taiwan's annual Golden Horse Awards. Social drama Drifting about a homeless ex-con leads the pack with 12 nominations. Very close behind are the mother/daughter pandemic drama The Falls (which we reviewed at Venice) and the Chang Chen led mystery The Soul (streaming on Netflix) with 11 nominations each. Moneyboys, the gay hustler drama that premiered at Cannes this summer snagged just two nominations but big ones (Best Actor for Kai Ko and Best New Director for C.B. Yi).

The actual winner doesn't often translate into being Taiwan's Oscar submission (The Assasin and A Sun are the only winners of the past ten years to be sent to the Oscars) though the submission is often among the nominees. UPDATE 10/06 That's true again this year as The Falls has just been selected for the Oscar competition.

The complete list of nominations and a lot more photos after the jump... 

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Cannes Diary #08: Huppert, Damon, "Titane", and peculiar babies...

by Elisa Giudici

Today a dream of mine came true: I was finally able to attend an event with Isabelle Huppert. She is quite popular on the film festival circuit but lately she is working in theatre a lot (right now some Chekhov, just like the protagonist of Drive My Car), so I was so excited to finally meet her at the "Rendez-vous avec Isabelle Huppert" event. Let me fangirl a little. She is truly a charismatic person with a serious attitude and kind smile. Her event had two moderators but they were quite nervous (I totally understand!) so the conversation was a bit repetitive if still interesting. The most iconic moment was when someone asked her if she ever experienced stage fright or if she was ever a little scared by the legendary directors she worked with. She immediately answered that she never feels intimidated by anyone. It is an attitude she is not interested in exploring; I wish my brain would listen and be more like that! On Haneke, she said that he obsesses over realistic movements, and gives actors a lot of boundaries but almost never any advice  on how to act...and she likes it that way,

In these kind of events moderators are crucial to create an interesting dialogue. I am not that much into Matt Damon's filmography but I found his Rendez-vous a memorable experience, too, because the interviewer prepared the list of questions well so that the whole event was engaging. Of course Damon's friendly attitude helped. He is a charming person and knows how to make an audience happy revealing small inside details from his long carrier. 

On to the movies...

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