"The Room Next Door" and "Emilia Perez" lead the EFA Nominations

by Nathaniel R

Nominations are in the for 37th annual European Film Awards which will take place on December 7th in approximately one month's time. You may recall that last year was dominated by Anatomy of a Fall which took home six awards (Film, Director, Actress, Screenplay, and special awards like Editing and the European University Film Award). It also proved popular with Oscar voters. Here are your nominees for the 2024 prizes. The awards ceremony moves each year. In December it moves to Switzerland for the first time. Oscar hopefuls The Room Next Door (hitting US theaters in December) and Emilia Perez (which hits Netflix next week) lead the nominations with four citations each. International Feature Film Oscar contenders like Denmark’s The Girl with the Needle, Germany’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Italy’s Vermiglio, Latvia’s Flow, Norway’s Armand and Senegal’s Dahomey were also popular with voters, scoring multiple nominations. 

Although people don't tend to think of the EFAs as an Oscar precursor, their collective taste does align fairly well with Oscar voters. It's been 9 years, for example since the winning film wasn't also Oscar nominated for either Best Picture and/or Best International Feature Film...

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"Anora" leads the Gotham Nominations

by Cláudio Alves

ANORA seems poised to dominate the awards season.

Another year, another awards season. And, like it happens every fall, the Gotham Awards have the privilege of kicking the race into high gear. Unsurprisingly, Anora leads with four nominations, followed by Nickel Boys and I Saw the TV Glow with three nods a piece, though the latter failed to get a spot in the Best Feature category. Then again, it's worth remembering that the Gothams' nine categories are divided into five distinct committees with no overlap between them. The same people (critics, curators, editors, and programmers) who decide the Director and Screenplay nominees have no say in who makes it into the acting races, for example.

So, expect idiosyncrasies and don't put much stock in how some films appear in a couple of major categories but not others. More than a precursor for Oscar gold, these prizes often feel like an opportunity to highlight the richness of the cinematic year before the viable contenders get reduced to a limited lot. So, let's take a look at their selection…

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Interview: Director Maura Delpero on Italy's new Oscar Submission "Vermiglio"

by Elisa Giudici

Photo Credit: Biennale di Venezia

Today, the Italian selection committee announced that Vermiglio by Maura Delpero would represent Italy at the 97th Oscars, competing in the Best International Feature category "for its ability to portray rural Italy of the past, with sentiments and themes that are universal and current."

The film, presented at the Venice Film Festival, won the Grand Jury Prize and received enthusiastic praise from critics. Just minutes after the announcement, Maura Delpero participated in a press conference to share her reaction to the news, discuss the first audience screenings in Italy just days before the national release, her upcoming festival commitments, and her long journey to this achievement...

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TIFF '24: From the Lido to Lake Ontario

by Cláudio Alves

Dea Kulumbegashvili's APRIL won the Special Jury Prize in Venice.

For many critics who don't attend the big European festivals, TIFF marks their first chance to see some of the circuit's most talked-about titles. This year, I spent a good portion of my time in Toronto catching up with Venice films – the two events overlapped as they usually do – and managed to watch a whopping eleven titles from its official competition. Elisa already reviewed many of the big ones, and Abe also shared his take on Kill the Jockey, so I won't bother with those titles past a capsule. However, there's much to say about the yet-unreviewed April and Vermiglio, two Venice prizewinners that rocked my world. Dea Kulumbegashvili did it with a formalist assault, vicious and visceral, while Maura Delpero opted for a pastoral meditation, as peaceful on the surface as the gradual changing of the seasons…

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Venice 2024: "The Room Next Door" takes the Golden Lion

by Nathaniel R

Pedro Almodóvar and his actresses Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton working on THE ROOM NEXT DOOR which is now a Golden Lion winner

The 81st annual Venice Film Festival has ended and the two perceived frontrunners The Brutalist and The Room Next Door took home major prizes, as did Babygirl, The Quiet Son, and Brazil's possible Oscar submission I'm Still Here. The "Competition" films are the headlining titles of course but they aren't the only films that get major mileage from applause and kudos as any festival wraps up. Outside of the main competition films like Familiar Touch (US), Familia (Italy), Iddu (Italy),  Mon Inséparable (France), Paul and Paulette Take a Bath (UK) and The New Year That Never Came (Romania) all won fanbases if the awards that flew around this week are indication.

The prizes went like so... 

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