Venice 2021: The Jury

by Nathaniel R

With Cannes wrapped we move on to the fall festival buzz. Next up is Venice (September 1st-11th) and we are thrilled to report that Elisa Giudici, our Italian correspondent who did such a fine job covering Cannes, will repeat that trick for Venice. The 78th Venice festival has just announced the complete jury for its competition films. Like Cannes, they've chosen a majority female jury this time around. Unlike Cannes they went big on very recent Oscar nominees and winners...

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74th Cannes. Spike Lee's Jury

by Nathaniel R

We've known for well over a year that Spike Lee would be presiding over the competition jury. And last week he became the first Jury President (that we know of) to ever be the poster star of the festival in the year he was jurying. How about that? People will also be excited to hear that the competition jury is majority women but that's not a first. It's actually the third time. Isabelle Huppert led a majority female jury in 2009 (White Ribbon won the Palme that year) and Jane Campion led a majority female jury in 2014 (Winter Sleep won).

LET'S MEET THE JURY...

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Doc Corner: Experiments within reality as Glenn sits on DOKLeipzig's FIPRESCI Jury

By Glenn Dunks

In October, I had the pleasure of being on my first virtual FIPRESCI jury. The International Federation of Film Critics is an organisation that has allowed me to visit and judge both the San Francisco and Stockholm festivals in the past. Since moving back home to Australia it’s has become much harder to do. Still, I wouldn’t have been able to attend DOK Leipzig in Germany for a multitude of reasons this year even without a global pandemic halting international travel. But I was able to attend this doc and animation festival from the relative comfort of my couch! 

My fellow jurors were Yun-hua Chen (critic and film academy member from Germany) and Hrovje Puksek (programmer for the Festival of Tolerance in Zagreb in Croatia). We each watched 12 films from the international competition before landing on our winner: Darío Doria's Vicenta of Argentina.

Our statement...

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Abe’s NewFest Wrap

By Abe Friedtanzer 

Saltanat Nauruz stars in "Welcome to the USA"

There are so many film festivals going on right now, and I’m very glad that I was able to screen so many selections from NewFest. I had the chance to watch fifteen films from the  32nd edition of the New York LGBTQ Film Festival, which took place online this year, representing more than a third of the feature slate. I had already seen Uncle Frank at Sundance, and I would definitely recommend that Alan Ball film, which comes to Amazon Prime on November 25th.

Here are NewFest’s jury prize winners for this year... 

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Abe’s AFI Fest Wrap

By Abe Friedtanzer

This was my first year covering AFI Fest, and also my first time covering a virtual festival during the festival itself. It was a positive experience on both fronts, and the viewing platform I used – the AFI Fest app for Roku – worked pretty well and including plenty of interesting conversations with talent.

AFI announced the following winners:

Audience Award - Narrative Feature WOLFWALKERS (DIR Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart)
Audience Award - Documentary Feature 76 DAYS (DIR Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, Anonymous)
Audience Award - Short Film LONELY BLUE NIGHT (DIR Johnson Cheng)
Grand Jury Prize – Animation TIGER AND OX (호랑이와 소) (DIR Seunghee Kim)
Grand Jury Prize – Live Action PILLARS (DIR Haley Elizabeth Anderson)
Special Mention - BLACK GOAT (DIR Yi Tang)
Special Mention  MAALBEEK (DIR Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis)
Special Mention UMBILICAL (DIR Danski Tang)

I personally had the chance to screen 17 films, which represent a third of the features shown. I also saw 6 of the other films at Sundance, but it hardly seems fair to include some of my favorites, like Nine Days and Farewell Amor, in this piece since I already cited them in my Sundance wrap. Without further ado, I submit my choices for the best of this year’s AFI Fest...

Abe’s 'Jury-of-One' Top Five AFI Fest 2020 Films 

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