Beyond Sight & Sound: An Alternative Canon

by Cláudio Alves

Appearing on 77 ballots, Spike Jonze's HER was the most voted film.

Two years ago, Sight & Sound released the results of their polls, voted by critics and filmmakers, on the best pictures ever made. Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles topped the former, causing various reactions that ranged from ecstatic to outraged. In total, the 2100 participants voted for 4366 unique titles. And yet, much great cinema was left without a single vote. In response, Ángel González devised another project for They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?, focusing on all those films the Sight & Sound voters ignored. A new list was devised based on the ballots of 839 critics and cinephiles. This time around, 4336 films received at least one vote - think of it as an alternative canon.

Nathaniel and I were among the lucky voters, with a few of our picks making the A-List of 1030 titles. Sometimes, our tastes even overlapped…

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"Asia" Wins the Ophir. Let's Talk Israel and Oscar...

by Nathaniel R

Alena Yiv and Shira Haas as mother and daughter in ASIA

The Ophir Awards were held today in Israel with Asia emerging as the winner so it will now represent Israel at the Oscars. Based on buzz we've heard on this mother/daughter drama, which caused a stir at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year we've added it to the actual Oscar predictions and our letterboxd list tracking the contenders. Asia is a mother/daughter drama starring Alena Yiv as the mother and the brilliant Shira Haas (Unorthodox) as the daughter (they both won Ophir Awards for this) so we will see it the first chance we get. You can see a full list of the nominees and winners at this freshly updated post.

But let's talk about Israel at the Oscars. They hold the distinction of being (by far) the most nominated country that's never won. They used to be in a tight race for that frustrating honor but in the past seven years Poland won with Ida and then Mexico with Roma so now the title is theirs alone. Their nearest rival is a distant one (Belgium has 7 nominations). More on Israeli classics and Oscar stats after the jump...

ISRAEL'S OSCAR STATS
Submitting since 1964
52 Total Submissions 
10 Nominations (and 1 Additional Finalist)
0 Wins 

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Ronit Elkabetz (1964-2016)

Terrible news to report today. The great Israeli actress Ronit Elkabetz has passed away at only 51 years of age. 

Her last film proved to be her biggest hit (Gett: The Trial of Viviane Absalem) -- we interviewed her right here -- but that courtroom drama was far from her only gem. We first fell (and fell hard) for the intense raven haired beauty in the astounding Late Marriage (2001) where she played the older woman in a sexually intense love affair with a slightly younger man (Lior Ashkenazi) whose parents were eager to marry him off to a "proper" bride and end his long-standing bachelordom. She won the Ophir (Israel's Academy Award) for that film, one of three wins for her as Best Actress.

If you've never seen "Late Marriage," you really must.She also starred in Or (My Treasure) (2004), the international hit The Band's Visit (2007), and other films in both France and Israel. In the past ten years she'd branched out from acting and with Gett she was directing and writing (along with her brother Shlomi), while continuing to dazzle in front of the camera. Awards groups took notice. She won prizes at the Hamptons, Chicago, Palm Springs, San Sebastian and Jerusalem film festivals for Gett and that last feature also resulted in multiple Ophir nods and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Film. 

Elkabetz was battling cancer and is survived by her husband and three year old twins. She will most definitely be missed, her rich expanding career cut suddenly short.