Movie On 2022

Last Saturday, December 15, the European Film Academy had their ceremony in Seville, Spain where they announced current year's award winners.  Was able to watch it live on TV and was lazy enough to wait until today, when there are too-many industry news, to write post even do I'm glad the BIG winner of the night was none other than Pawel Pawlikowski visually stunning with awesome music (love jazz) Cold War. Will share that the most emotional and exciting moment in the ceremony was undoubtedly the acceptance speech by Carmen Maura that brought tears to my eyes and I wasn't the only one as Pawel Pawlikoski admitted during one of his acceptance speeches, he was also with tears in his eyes plus all the anonymous people in the public when camera panned.  The rest of the show was unsurprising and at times a bit boring. Sigh. So a few days later here are the winners. European Film : Zimna Wojna (Cold War), Pawel Pawlikowski, European Discovery- Prix FIPRESCI : Girl , Lukas Dhont E...

Yesterday the Academy announced the films that will advance to be considered for a nomination in several categories; one of them is the foreign language film where nine (9) films advance. Most of us recall the process but for those that don't here it is: Los Angeles-based Academy members from all branches screened the original submissions in the category between mid-October and December 10. The group’s top six choices, augmented by three additional selections voted by the Academy’s Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee, constitute the shortlist . There are no surprises in this shortlist as includes the five that believe will obtain a nomination and if they don't, then that will be a huge surprise.  I'm talking about Roma, Cold War, Shoplifters, Burning and Capernaum.  Among the other four perhaps the most unexpected is Kazakhstan submission but we have to remember that film got the Best Actress award at 2018 Cannes. Some are surprised with submissions from Italy,...

A few days back, on November 29 the 2018 APSA awards ceremony took place in Brisbane, Australia and for the first time top award went to a Japanese film as Shoplifters won Best Feature Film. The Jury Prize went to Burning; so, APSA is honoring the two films that are penetrating the 2018 American Awards season with nominations and wins in the best foreign language film category as well as in other tech categories. Remarkable is the spread of awards as represent the geographical and cultural diversity of the Asia Pacific region, awards ent to films from Australia, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, China, Korea, Russia, Singapore and Turkey. The Cultural Diversity Award under the Patronage of UNESCO was awarded to Garin Nugroho and Ifa Isfansyah for Memories of My Body (Kucumbu Tubuh Indahku) (Indonesia) and accepted on the night by lead actor Muhummad Khan. The winner was determined by the APSA Cultural Diversity International Jury comprised of Jury Chair Khadija Al-Salami (Yemen...

Last night the so-called " most powerful " group of American critics voted their 2018 awards and to the surprise of many as it doesn't happens often (only 13 times in 45 years), their top award matched their east coast counterpart.  Yes, LAFCA gave top award to Roma which was New York Film Critics Circle top award.  Then quite a few critics groups between the east and west coast have also given top award to Roma, which makes me think that critics at least when it comes to Best Film seems to have a consensus that wonder if will repeat when Academics vote. Do not mind at all that critics are honoring Roma as really wish film could get a major Oscar as, according to many industry pundits, will give a huge push to still consider as films to those being consumed by audiences outside movie theaters.  No doubt that most industry players need to recognize that WE the audience nowadays have many options to consume films.  Not long ago situation was different as to watch movie...