Cannes 2024: Lily Gladstone joins Greta Gerwig's Jury

by Cláudio Alves

Lily Gladstone is one of the eight jurors who have just been announced for the Cannes Main Competition. After success at last year's festival with Killers of the Flower Moon, the Oscar nominee feels like a logical choice. Indeed, most of the jury comprises artists who have found acclaim at the Croisette. There's a former Palme winner, a Jury Prize victor, the co-writer of a Palme d'Or recipient, stars of various pictures that have screened there, and more. All things considered, Greta Gerwig is probably the least familiar with Cannes red carpets and the screen of the Lumière. But after three solo directorial credits of such cultural prominence, it's easy to see why she's this year's Jury President.

Here's the complete Main Competition Jury for the 74th Cannes Film Festival...

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Venice 2023: Opening film "Comandante" and the latest from Liliani Cavani

by Elisa Giudici

Edoardo De Angelis & Pierfrancesco Favino on the set of "Comandante"

Opening the Venice Film Festival is a daunting enough challenge. Now imagine being called in as a last-minute replacement for Luca Guadagnino’s new film starring Zendaya. Yet, Edoardo De Angelis managed to uphold the honor of Italian cinema admirably. His new film Comandante stands as a notable piece of filmmaking, injecting an interesting angle into the war subgenre of submarine films. To put it in perspective, it holds its own against the likes of The Wolf's Call, a recent European film of similar ambition from 2019, which boated a budget twice the size of Comandante.

A budget of 14 million euros isn't trivial within the national cinematic landscape, where the majority of yearly productions hover around the 1 to 2 million euro mark. This significant financial backing primarily went into meticulously recreating the interior and exterior spaces of the Cappellini submarine. Surprisingly, this endeavor was complicated by the scarcity of photographic references for the original ship or its close counterparts. De Angelis's film underscores a poignant historical reality: the majority of Italy's 120 submarines utilized during World War II met their demise, their crews were lost at sea, resting beneath coral crosses...

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International Feature Race - Part 3: A Dozen Movie Stars

by Nathaniel R

Voting on the finalist list for the Oscar categories that use that system (including Best International Feature Film) concluded last week with the finalist lists to be announced on December 21st. As a final part of our general trivia overview (pt 1 stats & genres / pt 2 directors) we thought we'd look at the famous faces gracing the international contenders this year. Here are eleven of the most familiar movie stars in the mix that Academy voters (and you) might recognize from their own history of awardage not to mention previous classics. We'll take these famous actors alphabetically starting with a multilingual Spanish-German star and ending with a Chinese beauty, both of whom came to fame in the Aughts when they were fresh-faced twentysomethings...

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Best International Film Reviews: Croatia, Italy, and Portugal

by Cláudio Alves

Let's continue our travels through the Best International Film Oscar submissions, with a focus on Southern European cinema this time. Specifically, today's subjects are the films from Italy, Croatia, and my beloved Portugal. This is a tale of one victor and two persevering losers who still manage to send in new films for consideration every year. While Italy is the category's reigning champion with eleven wins, Croatia and Portugal have yet to be nominated. They've never even made it into the shortlists. In the latter case, the country holds the record for the most submissions without a single nod. With great sadness in my heart, I must say that Portugal's Oscar fate is unlikely to change this season…

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Cannes Diary #8: Reshaping the world through voices or silence

by Elisa Giudici

TORI & LOKITA

Speak up for yourself and change the world. The problem is that sometimes that the most vulnerable people have no voice, enduring violence and betrayal in silence. Sometimes a forgotten language is found again. At other times silence is a radical choice made. Today, an immigrant story from the Dardennes, and a vivid true story from Agnieszka Smoczyńska, the director of The Lure...

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