Pt 2: International Feature Race - Auteur Spotlight

by Nathaniel R

SOUTH KOREA's Park Chan Wook & Lee Byung Hun [image via Lee Byung hun's Instagram]

To broaden your appreciation of this year's Best International Feature Film Oscar race we already looked at some overall trivia. Before we get to the movie stars (the finale of this three-parter), let's look at some stats involving the artists behind the camera. It's auteur season! We're highlighting 8 directors due to their critical reputation, being a cinephile fetish object, or having previous Oscar history... or in some cases all three! We'll start with...

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• Park Chan-wook (South Korea's No Other Choice) 
Remarkably this 62 year-old auteur and Academy member has only been submitted twice by South Korea  despite a rich filmography...

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Oscar Volley: Best Director is an embarrassment of riches

The Oscar Volleys are back! Tonight, it's time for Cláudio Alves Eric Blume to discuss the Best Director race...

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, Paul Thomas Anderson | © Warner Bros.

CLÁUDIO: This early in the season, every race is somewhat volatile, prone to radical changes down the road to Oscar. However, I think that Best Director feels especially mercurial as far as nominations are concerned, though not for a lack of contenders - quite the opposite! Voters are spoiled for choice from a roster of strong candidates, all with mighty campaigns behind them, sterling reviews and eye-catching narratives. So much so that only PTA feels secure in his nomination bid, all but locked for the honor unless AMPAS pulls a 2012 on us.

Personally, I can't complain, even if he has been way more worthy of these plaudits in the past and should have already won a couple of Oscars - There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread come to mind. Of course, One Battle After Another is excellent, not some mediocrity destined to win apologies in the form of unwarranted trophies. The "River of Hills" chase sequence alone will surely be played in all tributes to PTA's career in a couple of decades. And yet, my mind can't help but wander to The Departed when pondering OBAA at the Oscars...

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The Film Fest Triple Crown: Who's Next?

by Cláudio Alves

Juliette Binoche's jury made history when they gave Jafar Panahi the Palme d'Or.

One month ago, Jafar Panahi took the Palme d'Or at Cannes for It Was Just an Accident and thus became the fourth director to win top honors from the Croisette, the Berlinale, and the Venice Film Festival. The Iranian master joins the ranks of Henri-Georges Clouzot, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Robert Altman. However. If you exclude ties and those cineastes who won two prizes for the same film, then Panahi and Antonioni are in an exclusive club of two. Inspired by Eric Blume's musings on the Triple Crown of Acting – Oscar, Tony, and Emmy – I started to ask myself what other filmmakers are close to achieving the same Palm, Golden Lion, and Bear combo. Who's next? The answers might surprise you…

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Cannes Diary 07: Palme d'Or Winner "It was just an accident"

by Elisa Giudici

Jafar Panahi's "It was just an accident"

In awarding the Palme d'Or to Jafar Panahi, Jury President Juliette Binoche was keen to emphasize that the prize was not awarded due to the notorious political and judicial circumstances surrounding the Iranian filmmaker, but rather for the profound humanity that permeates his cinema. The reference, quite evidently, was to those who venomously suggest that the oppressive conditions Panahi and his colleagues have battled for decades somehow aid their entry into the festival's honor roll. Yet, the issue is far more complex, much like the narrative of It Was Just an Accident itself...

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Cannes at Home: Champions of the Neon God

by Cláudio Alves

Let's hope Neon gives Panahi's Palme winner a proper release. No LA CHIMERA nonsense, please.

Neon is on a hot streak. Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident marks the sixth Palme d'Or winner in a row that the distributor will handle for its US release. Then again, they achieved this by leaving nothing to chance, going on a shopping spree of perceived frontrunners. To the point where they have American distribution rights for four of the eight prizewinning films. The other heavy-hitter was Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value, which took the Grand Prix, tantamount to second-place honors. But, of course, we shouldn't forget about the films that got no trophy. In between the two big champions, Mario Martone presented Fuori, and Carla Simón moved audiences with her Romería. If Oliver Hermanus' The History of Sound wasn't as acclaimed as one would hope, remember that much can change as far as critical consensus is concerned once more people see these Cannes titles. 

For the penultimate Cannes at Home special, let's examine some of these auteur's earlier efforts, all character studies in their own way. There's Panahi's The White Balloon, Martone's Nostalgia, Simón's Summer 1993, Hermanus' Moffie, and Trier's Reprise…

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