Best International Film: Belgium, Kosovo, Russia

by Cláudio Alves

Our odyssey through the Best International Film submissions continues, this time focused on women behind the camera. As Juan Carlos' series Through Her Lens reminds us, there's a wealth of women directors every year whose work gets forgotten in lieu of their male counterparts. Of course, that's true in the Best Director Oscar race, but it also applies to every other category, including this one. From schoolyard bullying shot as psychological warfare to the physical aftermaths of an unspoken massacre, the submissions from Belgium, Kosovo, and Russia showcase the talent of female artists who explore many shades of brutality through a woman's point-of-view…

Click to read more ...

Doc Corner: Denmark's Oscar Submission 'Flee' + 'We Are Russia' at DOC NYC

By Glenn Dunks

DOC NYC continues. The festival runs for in-person screenings from November 10–18 and then will carry over online until November 28. I have a Twitter thread covering what I am watching, but today we're looking at a big Oscar contender alongside a smaller, but no less worthy doc from the same part of the world.

I find it can often take a minute to get used to animated documentaries. I find the hand-crafted nature of the medium to be a bit of a barrier to the telling of these true-to-life stories. A barrier that my brain initially can’t quite comprehend when I am so used to the traditional elements—not too unlike adjusting to 3D or VR, maybe.

It’s true that animation has become more and more common in documentary, particularly as a means of representing moments of history that couldn’t have been captured on film. I sometimes wish they wouldn’t bother as the quality can often vary wildly. But like other documentaries made from a majority of animation (Keith Maitland’s Tower and Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir come to mind), the much buzzed Flee quickly surpasses those up-front mental blocks. Here, the vivid, colourful animation brings out an even deeper well of emotion from émigré Amin Nawabi’s story in the same way blue eyes can bring out the colour of an item of clothing.

Click to read more ...

New International Contenders: "The Hand of God" and an extremely hot Instagram star

by Nathaniel R

Time to check in again with Oscar submissions as five more countries join the fray. The highest profile new entry is Italy's The Hand of God by Paolo Sorrentino. He triumphed in this category eight years back with The Great Beauty (2013) which ended the longest drought -- seven years -- that Italy has ever had in this particular competition. If The Hand of God snags the nomination, Sorrentino will have performed this feat twice since Italy hasn't been nominated since. Sorrentino joins Iran's Asghar Farhadi (A Hero) as the only International contender this season who has already led a film to victory in this category.  The Hand of God is a memoir about Sorrentino's teenage years and a family tragedy. He's been campaigning enthusiastically since Cannes, recently attending the Middleburg Film Festival to receive an International Spotlight prize.

Other new contenders are after the jump...

Click to read more ...

I Put A Link On You... and now you're mine 🎵

• The Reveal you may have heard that NEON is planning an unusual release for Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Memoria in that it will only play in one movie theater at a time for one week and continually move to new cities and never come to streaming. The internet was furious about the 'elitism' of this but Scott Tobias has a different take that's well worth reading
• Coming Soon Trailer to season 2 of Locke & Key. Not half enough Connor Jessup in this teaser!
• Vulture Bayard Rustin is FINALLY getting a biopic and Colman Domingo will be playing the gay Civil rights hero of yore. Now we can begin dreaming that Domingo will finally become an Oscar nominee a year or two from now. It usually takes a biopic (sigh)

First movie shot in space, Hocus Pocus-themed concert, Andrew Lloyd Weber on various stage-to-film adaptations, Théodore Pellerin rumors, and more after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Cannes at Home: Day 7

by Cláudio Alves

Last year, while the Cannes Film Festival did not occur, the organizers revealed a list of titles selected. Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch was among them, and, unlike many other films slotted for the 2020 Croisette, it rescheduled all release plans so it could still premiere at the festival. After a one-year delay, it's finally upon us, and the reviews skew positive. Let's hope it's worth the wait. Another main competition title to take its bow today was Kirill Serebrennikov's Petrov's Flu. It's the Russian director's second film to compete for the Palme d'Or and his first release since a controversial conviction for embezzlement. Still banned from leaving Russia, he attended the festival by FaceTime. More on that later. For now, let's look back at these directors' previous successes – a bittersweet comedy on dysfunctional families and a galvanizing political allegory about modern Russia…

Click to read more ...