10 Questions about the Oscar race

by Nathaniel R

Every Oscar chart has been updated. Late October is always a strange time in the awards race. It's a time when most of the major players have surfaced (at festivals or screenings) but nobody has yet seen everything and no awards groups (beyond festival juries) have sorted and sifted through the abundance. Which means anything is still possible until the critics groups and awards org begin to narrow the focus of Academy voters in ways that tend to be both interesting and disheartening. They'll boost a couple of unexpected but worthy contenders into the conversation but at the same time their hive mind choices will pour abundant love on too few titles and starve other beauties of sunlight and water.

So as you peruse the charts, answer these ten questions in the comments...

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Mother-Daughter Duos at the Oscars

by Cláudio Alves

Fernanda Montenegro in Walter Salles' I'M STILL HERE.

This past week, Fernanda Montenegro celebrated her 95th birthday. A living legend of Brazilian culture in various mediums, she is our oldest living Best Actress nominee. Montenegro is back on the awards trail with Walter Salles' I'm Still Here. While her late-film cameo won't excite many voters, Brazil's Best International Film submission is raking in Audience Awards at festivals worldwide and sterling reviews to match. Perhaps Sony Pictures Classics can even look away from Saoirse Ronan and Almodóvar's leading ladies for a moment, and mount a Best Actress campaign for Fernanda Torres. Her performance as Eunice Paiva is nothing short of magnificent. 

Though a longshot, Torres' nomination would be amply deserved, making her and Montenegro one of the few mother-daughter duos to score acting Oscar nominations. It's a very exclusive club that includes…

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"Sugarcane" leads the Critics Choice Documentary Awards nominations

by Cláudio Alves

National Geographic's SUGARCANE is the nomination leader, with citations in eight categories.

Since 2016, the Critics Choice Awards has expanded its repertoire to include various documentary categories. These CCDAs are now separate from the precursor we know so well and stand apart as their own thing. Still, most look at these honors as Oscar predictors. Which is understandable if not wholly supported by a complete correlation between AMPAS and the CCDA. Not even when the latter have double the nominees for their main prize. On their ninth edition, they have opted for a curiously tame selection, at odds with the current political climate. There's a big emphasis on glossy biographical works and celebrity profiles, formalistic conventionality, studio fare, and all that jazz. That being said, Sugarcane leads with eight nods.

Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat's film goes into a case of abuse and missing children at a Sugarcane Reserve's Christian school. Focusing on the Native American community, Sugarcane is certainly not without an urgent message and a perspective on its subject. The same can't be said about all its competitors…

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Interview: Director Maura Delpero on Italy's new Oscar Submission "Vermiglio"

by Elisa Giudici

Photo Credit: Biennale di Venezia

Today, the Italian selection committee announced that Vermiglio by Maura Delpero would represent Italy at the 97th Oscars, competing in the Best International Feature category "for its ability to portray rural Italy of the past, with sentiments and themes that are universal and current."

The film, presented at the Venice Film Festival, won the Grand Jury Prize and received enthusiastic praise from critics. Just minutes after the announcement, Maura Delpero participated in a press conference to share her reaction to the news, discuss the first audience screenings in Italy just days before the national release, her upcoming festival commitments, and her long journey to this achievement...

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France submits "Emilia Perez". Spain chooses "Saturn Return". Mexico names finalists

by Nathaniel R

Selena Gomez in "Emilia Perez"

We've already posted two reviews of Emilia Perez here at TFE, from Elisa (pro) and Cláudio (con), and it's been a potential Oscar player since it's premiere at Cannes in May.  Today France announced that the buzzy drug cartel trans musical curiousity would represent them at the Oscars, beating out fellow finalists Misericordia, All We Imagine as Light, and The Count of Monte Cristo. This is the second time France has submitted the often thrilling auteur Jacques Audiard. His previous submission, Un Prophete, was nominated for the prize back in 2009 but surely split the 'critical consensus' vote with Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, allowing Argentina to slip between them for the win for the sleeper success The Secret in Their Eyes.  France hasn't won the Oscar in this category since 1992's Indochine. Could Emilia Perez finally spell gold again for the birthplace of cinema?

But there's lots more International Feature Oscar news after the jump...

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