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Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Performer: Filippo Scotti for The Hand of God

Volpi Cup for Best Actor goes to John Arcilla for ON THE JOB: THE MISSING 8

And the Volpi Cup for Best Actress goes to Penelope Cruz for PARALLEL MOTHERS

Silver Lion for directing goes to Jane Campion for THE POWER OF THE DOG

Grand Jury Prize (2nd place) goes to THE HAND OF GOD

And finally, the Golden Lion goes to L’ÉVÉNEMENT from director Audrey Diwan

Diwan seems a worthy winner from all accounts. She won the FIPRESCI, too. It's refreshing for them for move away from Oscar films for a year.

After the Oscar hopefuls (defined by them debuting early in the festival, so they could go to Colorado, etc.), the Brizé, Giannoli, Vasyanovych all seemed to receive solid reviews, as well as Diwan's film obviously. I never saw her 2019 debut, but obviously I'll see this one, and it looks like we have two female French directors on their second film winning Cannes and Venice. Doors are wide-open for them obviously. (Perhaps Fremaux should have pilfered Happening from Venice rather than Dumont's film.)

The Tokyo International Film Festival is bringing back the "Conversation Series at Asia Lounge" that it first hosted in 2020. Like last year's series, this will be streamed online and then presumably uploaded to Youtube. I watched a few of the 2020 conversations live and they were all very good, especially the one with Rithy Panh and Yoshida Yoshishige, who spoke insightfully about his new novel (which I don't expect I'll ever be able to read, but oh well). The Kurosawa Kiyoshi/Jia Zhangke talk was kind of a bummer since Jia had to cancel due to illness, but his longtime producer Ichiyama Shōzō stepped in and was able to answer most of the questions. That said, I'll probably hold off for the Youtube uploads this year because it was kind of painful waiting for the translation on the live streams, especially for speakers like Tsai Ming-liang who had to be translated into both Japanese and English. The lineup for this year isn't complete yet, but here's what they've announced so far:

• Brillante Ma. Mendoza and Nagase Masatoshi
• Kamila Andini and Sode Yokiko
• Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Nishijima Hidetoshi
• Bahman Ghobadi and Hashimoto Ai
• Isabelle Huppert and Hamaguchi Ryūsuke (guess we know which Asian director she's going to work with next)

IFF Boston announced their Fall Focus festival is back this year, Oct 20-24 at the Brattle (per usual). The schedule isn't out yet, but the opening film will be The French Dispatch (two days before wide release) and the closing film will be Almodóvar's Parallel Mothers

Mike Mills is going to be in attendance at the opening night showing of C’mon, C’mon at the New Orleans Film Festival. More spotlight films yet to be announced, but I’m pleasantly surprised already — we don’t usually get pulls quite that big.

C'mon, soundchaser, now I'm looking at flights to NOLA

I can’t promise there’ll be tickets left by the time they go on sale to us plebs, but I can’t NOT promise that either.

therewillbeblus wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 11:39 pm IFF Boston announced their Fall Focus festival is back this year, Oct 20-24 at the Brattle (per usual). The schedule isn't out yet, but the opening film will be The French Dispatch (two days before wide release) and the closing film will be Almodóvar's Parallel Mothers

The full schedule isn't posted yet, but if you're planning to attend, don't sleep on buying tix as they become available. The French Dispatch already sold out (I figured it would stay available for weeks, as is typical for IFF Boston Fall Focus Festival showings, but the enhanced covid protocols of seat-selection and distancing are limiting space- plus obviously it's a coveted screening) and Parallel Mothers was at about 40% sold when I bought mine last night

Here's the link to Parallel Mothers

Full lineup for IFF Boston Fall Focus festival (no schedule yet, tix to go on sale early next week), in alphabetical order: Belfast, C'mon c'mon, The French Dispatch (sold out), Parallel Mothers, Petite Maman, Happening, Joy Ride, Memoria, Red Rocket, Spencer, The Worst Person in the World

In a stunning move, France has selected Titane as their submission to the 2022 Oscars (over Golden Lion-winner Happening). I have not seen the latter film so can't comment on its chances, but I'm having a seriously difficult time imagining Titane even making the shortlist.

It may get nominated, but I don’t see it having much traction with Oscars voters. (I almost said “it would be something to see Neon get 2 Best Picture Oscars in a row,” which shows you how memorable last year’s slate was.)

lzx wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 6:10 pm In a stunning move, France has selected Titane as their submission to the 2022 Oscars (over Golden Lion-winner Happening). I have not seen the latter film so can't comment on its chances, but I'm having a seriously difficult time imagining Titane even making the shortlist.

I have seen Happening and it definitely would've had a very good shot for a nom. However I think Titane is also not out of the question, because it's gotten a lot more "hype" than other recent Palme d'Or winners the Oscars (or their respective countries) have ignored, and it's hard to imagine the Academy completely ignoring it (even if that just means it making the shortlist)

Also it seems clear from recent years that the Oscars are on a weird yet artistic kick for foreign language films.

Boston's Fall Focus festival schedule has been announced and tix go on sale to non-members tomorrow morning, though FYI, if you play around on the Brattle's website you can access their full calendar and actually purchase tix now without a membership. I have a funeral impacting Memoria's screening (so I guess I'll never see it then, NEON) but otherwise should be able to catch most everything, though I'm not hyped on Joy Ride or Belfast (thanks for taking one for the team, DI) and I'm not too motivated about Happening either at the moment

To be clear, I would absolutely love to be proven wrong about Titane's traction with voters, my personal reservations regarding the film aside. The biggest reason behind my skepticism is that the film derives much (for me, most) of its power via its sound design, which is impossible to replicate at home with a screener.

Pavel wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 7:33 pm However I think Titane is also not out of the question, because it's gotten a lot more "hype" than other recent Palme d'Or winners the Oscars (or their respective countries) have ignored, and it's hard to imagine the Academy completely ignoring it (even if that just means it making the shortlist)

Fair point, and I'm all for getting as many Academy members to see this as possible! Sadly, though, the hype surrounding the film failed to translate to box office success in the US, despite what Neon would have us believe.

soundchaser wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 6:24 pm (I almost said “it would be something to see Neon get 2 Best Picture Oscars in a row,” which shows you how memorable last year’s slate was.)

I also completely skipped over last year's awards in my mind when I saw the news and thought it was France's attempt to make up for submitting the more "awards-friendly" Les misérables over Portrait... last year... before realizing that it was two years ago!

DarkImbecile wrote: Fri Sep 03, 2021 9:32 pm On the other end of the spectrum, Joe Wright’s musical adaptation of Cyrano (de Bergerac) is completely secure and consistent in being a big, broad, colorful musical built around big, broad performances from Peter Dinklage, Haley Bennett, Ben Mendehlson, and Kelvin Harrison, Jr. Surprisingly sensual at times and buoyed by some truly great location shooting (including a climactic sequence on Mount Aetna) help make this much more successful than Wright’s attempts at straight drama, because the genre allows him to indulge in the bombast, heightened imagery, and (over)emoting he instinctively leans into without feeling at all tonally inconsistent or inappropriate. Cyrano ultimately isn't for me, but I could appreciate how well it is going to work for those (like my wife) who love this kind of film.

This absolutely brutalized me in just the grandest way. I’m only vaguely familiar with the source material, but the way Schmidt, Wright, The National, and especially McGarvey play with it is as incredibly effective as they come. It seems at once incredibly faithful to nineteenth century theater and eerily modern with a playful Leonard Cohen approach to music as a form of witticism. I was crying and laughing throughout with Heaven is Wherever I Fall in particular as proving to me that this is, for those so inclined to big brash comedic melodramas, a near perfect movie.

I rewatched Cyrano a couple of months ago with my wife, and I enjoyed it far more than I had initially (and she loved it, as I had expected). I think my cold personal response to it at the festival — which, when I reread the response you quoted, seems completely divorced from my evaluation of its qualities — was unduly influenced by the reaction of the people with whom I saw it and perhaps my own mild irritation at the increasingly middlebrow/Oscar-baiting leanings of the festival I invest a fair amount of resources to attending. My viewing of Cyrano was the morning after my screening of Belfast, and I really needed another couple of palate-cleansers before I could fairly evaluate something that I perceived to be targeting a very similar audience.

I'll add more praise to Cyrano, which is the best adaptation of the material I've seen yet, and simultaneously one of the best modern musicals and melodramas, full stop. It's not a leap for The National's Dessner bros to cater their music to Dinklage and co's baritones, but the songs are great and their notes line up perfectly with Dinklage's aching performance through song. This layered approach is integral for his expressions to maximize their weight in pulsating urgency, rather than defaulting to separating the singing portions of acting as merely complementary for his performance around it, as most musicals operate without consideration for the more challenging task. I'm glad knives singled out McGarvey's presence here, as the camera's eclectic ability to capture just the right key in every frame propels this film into becoming epic in scope, and not in terms of its lavish set designs and narrative adventurousness but in platforming the many faces of the feeling of love. Rather than revolving around a single strategic idea, McGarvey's camera dances in sync with the ethereal moods in what feels like spontaneous inspiration, despite obviously being carefully planned. That stance gives the visual composition a feel of liberation right with the themes of a musical. There are times when we're invited in via odd angles, direct presentation, or others where expressionistic long static shots of landscapes evoke so much more against the backdrop of emotionally purging vocals than any sweeping crane shots would do. An all around terrific piece of work.