César Nominations: Gay drama "Summer of 85" Leads

by Nathaniel R

Summer of '85

Oops. This headline is misleading due to a miscount. The nomination leader at the César's (i.e. the French oscars) is a film called Love Affair(s). But François Ozon's gay coming of age drama Summer of '85, which has a bit of an international profile given its festival run, is not far behind with an impressive 12 nods. Two of us, the lesbian drama and France's Oscar finalist (and Golden Globe nominee) this year, didn't fare as well, receiving only four nominations (two of which are in Best Actress). Because the Oscar calendars were so different than usual this year, none of these films will be eligible for Oscar submission next year from France (usually you get a lot of late year titles from home countries which are submitted the following year to the Oscars but that can't be the case next season due to the extended eligibility peeriod). Hopefully some of these titles will make their way to us here in the US soon.

The César Awards will be held on March 12th this year. If a film has a link it goes to our review or coverage of the film or filmmaker. Here are the nominations...

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Five French finalists for Oscar submission

by Nathaniel R

It would never be an easy decision to select the French submission for the Oscar given how much there is to choose from each year. Their Oscar submission honor will be announced in December but we know now that it will be one of these five pictures which were selected by a film industry committee...

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Chi Film Fest: "Summer of 85"

Coverage from the 56th annual Chicago Film Festival

by Nick Taylor

One fun thing about not really watching trailers anymore is that a movie can surprise me pretty easily. For example, I knew from teasers that François Ozon’s Summer of 85 was pitching itself as the French answer to Call Me By Your Name. The story sees two incredibly handsome teenagers named Alex (Felix Lefebvre) and David (Benjamin Voison) have a life-altering romance during a life-changing special summer. But I completely missed the trailer that revealed a whole second narrative where a zombie-like Alex is being tried for an unspecified crime that sounds a lot like murdering David. 

So, there’s the part of Summer of 85 that’s very much Ozon doing a Call Me By Your Name-style romance and the part that's the melancholic aftermath...

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