
Sundance Institute and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s joint Science-In-Film Initiative awarded Love Me, from filmmaker duo Sam and Andy Zuchero, with this year’s juried Feature Film Prize at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance Institute and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s joint Science-In-Film Initiative awarded Love Me, from filmmaker duo Sam and Andy Zuchero, with this year’s juried Feature Film Prize at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

The Hate U Give leads this year’s winners of the 2nd Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society Awards with a total of four awards including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade followed closely with three awards including Best Independent Film, Best First Feature, and Best Performance by an Actress 23 and Under for Elsie Fisher.
BlacKkKlansman[/caption]
The Favourite and Black Panther top the 2018 Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society (LAOFCS) nominations list with ten nominations each, followed by A Star is Born with nine and BlacKkKlansman with eight. Indie films were well represented with Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade scoring six nominations. and Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk scoring a total of five nominations including Best Supporting Actress.
The members of the Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society have also voted on some of the more underrepresented films this award season including Fox’s The Hate U Give, Focus Features’ Tully, Sony Pictures’ Searching, and Roadside’s Ben is Back, among several others.
“In a year where diversity and representation have been at the forefront of so many conversations, I believe that the LAOFCS nominations this year proves how much representation truly matters. There have been a lot of great films this year that have tackled important issues, so I am thrilled to see that reflected in our nominations,” added LAOFCS’ Scott Menzel.
In addition to the film nominations, the LAOFCS will also announce a few other awards including the recipient of this Trailblazer Award which was previously awarded to Jessica Chastain.
The Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society (LAOFCS) 2nd Annual Awards Ceremony will be held on January 9th, 2019, at the Taglyan Complex in Los Angeles.
“Green Book” directed by Peter Farrelly[/caption]
The National Board of Review named Green Book as Best Film of the Year, Bradley Cooper as Best Director of the Year for A Star is Born, Viggo Mortensen as Best Actor of the Year for his performance in Green Book, and Lady Gaga as Best Actress of the Year for her performance in A Star is Born.
NBR President Annie Schulhof said, “We are proud to honor Green Book as our best film – it is a warm and heartfelt look at a remarkable friendship, brought to the screen at a moment where its story of love, compassion, and shared humanity deeply resonates. We are also thrilled to award Bradley Cooper as our best director – he is an extraordinary talent behind the camera, bringing a fresh and modern perspective, as well as superb craftsmanship and tremendous heart, to the classic story of A Star is Born.”
The 2018 awards continue the NBR’s tradition of recognizing excellence in filmmaking, going back 109 years. This year 261 films were viewed by this select group of film enthusiasts, filmmakers, professionals, academics, and students, many of which were followed by in-depth discussions with directors, actors, producers, and screenwriters.
The National Board of Review’s awards celebrate the art of cinema, with categories that include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, Best Original and Adapted Screenplay, Breakthrough Performance, and Directorial Debut, as well as signature honors such as Freedom of Expression and the William K. Everson Film History Award.
The honorees will be feted at the NBR Awards Gala, hosted by Willie Geist, on Tuesday, January 8, 2019 at Cipriani 42nd Street.
We the Animals[/caption]
We the Animals leads the nominations for the 2019 Film Independent Spirit Awards with 5 nods including Best First Feature, but missed out on a nomination for Best Feature. Nominees for Best Feature are Eighth Grade, First Reformed, If Beale Street Could Talk, Leave No Trace and You Were Never Really Here.
Suspiria was selected to receive the Robert Altman Award, which is bestowed upon one film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast. The Altman Award was created in 2008 in honor of legendary director Robert Altman who was known for creating extraordinary ensemble casts.
Winners of the Spirit Awards Filmmaker Grants will be announced at the Film Independent Spirit Awards Filmmaker Grant and Nominee Brunch on Saturday, January 5, 2019.
John Cho stars in SEARCHING – directed by Aneesh Chaganty. Photo Courtesy of Screen Gems[/caption]
The Fantasia International Film Festival wrapped its 2018 edition on August 2nd with the sold out Canadian Premiere of Panos Cosmatos’ MANDY, and announced its final batch of awards, including the Audience Awards. The 23rd edition of Fantasia will occur July 11th through August 1st, 2019.
I FEEL GOOD by Benoît Delépine, Gustave Kervern[/caption]
The official program of the 71st edition of the Locarno Festival was announced at a press conference today, Wednesday July 11, 2018. The line-up for the official juries was also announced as were tributes to Wolf-Eckart Bühler, Pierre Rissient, Francis Reusser and Claude Lanzmann. The 71st Locarno Festival will take place from August 1 to 11, 2018.
In the program introduction, Carlo Chatrian, Artistic director, notes “This year’s program also includes films that, instead of portraying the conflicts raging around the world, concentrate on private stories, while allowing the present to resonate like the echoes of a thunderstorm. Examples are Yara by Abbas Fahdel, who following his epic Homeland (Iraq Year Zero) has left the war zone to plunge into the Lebanese countryside; or the portrait which Ethan Hawke – Excellence Award 2018 – dedicates in the eponymous film to the musician BLAZE, conflicted but charming hero, a rebel against the system and a profoundly free spirit, fated for a tragic end. These are just two films that create a bond between the self and the world, between the details of an individual life and the universal truths revealed by their story. Another of their common traits is also found in many other titles: the courage shown by their protagonists when faced with an insurmountable obstacle. Perhaps that’s why these and so many other films this year simply take a name for their title (Diane, Alice T., M., Menocchio, Sibel, Ray & Liz, Siyabonga). It may well be a sign of renewed trust in film as an art form capable of telling the stories of men and women without filtering them through symbolism, proof that the human face may be back as the be-all and end-all of a film. If so, I should like to present this year’s program as a single, magnificent and very long portrait gallery of unique faces, disarming even when well aware of the artfulness of their fiction. From Stan Laurel to the young Israeli Menahem and his disturbing statements in M.; from Mae West’s opulence to the sublime beauty of Julio Bressane’s muse in Sedução da Carne; from the discreet charm of Ingrid Bergman to the appeal of Noée Abita in Genèse; from the madcap elegance of Irene Dunne to the disenchanted appeal of Mary Kay Place in Diane.”
John Cho stars in the LAAPFF Audience Award Winning film SEARCHING – directed by Aneesh Chaganty. Photo Courtesy of Screen Gems[/caption]
The 34th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (LAAPFF) came to a close this past weekend and announced their audience awards for best films at this year’s film extravaganza that began on May 3 and ended on May 12, 2018.
The thriller, mystery film “SEARCHING” – directed by first time feature filmmaker Aneesh Chaganty – won the LAAPFF Audience Award for Outstanding North American Narrative Feature Film. The film, starring John Cho and Debra Messing, was a double award winner at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, as well. Audiences at LAAPFF were impressed by the cast, the screenplay, and the direction of the film that centered on a father’s search for his missing teenage daughter and has to turn to the Internet to try and find her. Audiences were abuzz about the film throughout the eight-day festival. “SEARCHING” will open nationally in August in theaters through Screen Gems.
The personal documentary “MINDING THE GAP” – directed by Bing Liu – won the LAAPFF Audience Award for Outstanding North American Documentary Feature. Audiences were moved by the filmmaker’s intimate story of three friends who come of age in their twenties and have to face growing up and possibly giving up their skateboarding days. The film also won the LAAPFF Special Jury Prize for Best Director and was an award winner at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, as well.
In the International Narrative Feature category, the LAAPFF Audience Award went to “IN THE LIFE OF MUSIC” – directed by Caylee So and Visal Sok – for telling a powerful inter-generational tale that explores love, war, and a family’s relationship to the song Champa Battambang, made famous by Sinn Sisamouth, the King of Cambodian music. The film depicts the lives of people whose world is inevitably transformed by the emergence of the Khmer Rouge. The film also won the LAAPFF Special Jury Prize for Best Director in the International Narrative Feature category.
In the International Documentary Feature category, the audience gave the award to “LATE LIFE: THE CHIEN-MING WANG STORY” – directed by Frank W. Chen. This moving film chronicles the life of Taiwanese pro-baseball player Chien-Ming Wang, who was once so dominating on the mound that he was named New York Yankees’ starting pitcher for the inaugural game at New Yankee Stadium in 2009. But after a terrible ankle injury, Wang’s pitches lost their effectiveness, and he soon fell off major league rosters. LATE LIFE follows Wang through his grueling workout routines and unglamorous minor league pit stops as he mounts his remarkable comeback. He is helped along the way by his loyal agent, trainers, Yankees fans, and his family, creating a de-facto support network that keeps him going.
Boundaries[/caption]
The 23rd Nantucket Film Festival taking place June 2 to 25, 2018, will open with “Boundaries,” written and directed by Shana Feste. The film tells the story of single mom Laura (Vera Farmiga) who is forced to drive her estranged, pot-dealing father Jack (Christopher Plummer) from Seattle to Los Angeles after he is kicked out of a retirement home. The comedy also stars Bobby Cannavale, Peter Fonda, Christopher Lloyd and Kristen Schaal.
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Love, Gilda[/caption]
“Love, Gilda,” directed by Lisa D’Apolito, will close the festival. The documentary reveals the personal side of iconic comedian Gilda Radner through rare personal recordings and journal entries.
Morgan Neville’s “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?″ will screen as the festival’s centerpiece film. The documentary depicts the life and legacy of the late Fred Rogers, host of the popular children’s television series “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and a longtime Nantucket summer resident.
For the ninth year in a row, the festival will screen a Disney‒Pixar film on opening day. This year the studio will showcase the animated feature “Incredibles 2,” with Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Samuel L. Jackson, John Ratzenberger and director Brad Bird reprising their characters from the first film.
The festival will also continue its relationship with the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra in screening a classic silent film accompanied by a new orchestral score. This year, Berklee students will perform their original score for the new restoration of “The Man Who Laughs”(1928), based on the Victor Hugo novel and starring Mary Philbin and Conrad Veidt. Veidt’s character is widely acknowledged to have been the genesis of the iconic Batman villain, the Joker.
Nearly 50 feature selections have been announced, including two world premieres: Galt Niederhoffer’s “10 Things We Should Do Before We Break Up,” starring Christina Ricci and Hamish Linklater as strangers who decide to try to be a couple when a one-night stand results in pregnancy; and Donal Lardner Ward’s “We Only Know So Much,” a multigenerational family drama featuring Jeanne Tripplehorn and “Stranger Things’ ” Noah Schnapp.
The festival will also present four Sundance Audience Award winners: Andrew Heckler’s KKK drama “Burden,” starring Garrett Hedlund, Forest Whitaker and Andrea Riseborough; Aneesh Chaganty’s “Searching,” a thriller starring John Cho and Debra Messing which takes place entirely on a laptop screen; Rudy Valdez’s personal documentary about his incarcerated sister, “The Sentence;” and Alexandra Shiva’s “This Is Home,” a documentary about Syrian refugees adjusting to life in Baltimore.
Notable among this year’s narrative titles are several which highlight strong female leads, including Susanna White’s “Woman Walks Ahead,” starring Jessica Chastain; Isabel Coixet’s “The Bookshop,” starring Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson; Marianna Palka’s “Egg,” starring Christina Hendricks and Alysia Reiner; Marc Turtletaub’s “Puzzle,” starring Kelly Macdonald; Bo Burnham’s “Eighth Grade,” starring newcomer Elsie Fisher; Björn Runge’s “The Wife,” starring Glenn Close; and Richard Eyre’s “The Children Act,” starring Emma Thompson.
Other highlights include new films by acclaimed documentary filmmakers, including Marina Zenovich’s “Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind,” Lauren Greenfield’s “Generation Wealth,” Susan Lacy’s “Jane Fonda In Five Acts,” Rory Kennedy’s “Above And Beyond: NASA’s Journey To Tomorrow,” Barbara Kopple’s “A Murder In Mansfield,” Eugene Jarecki’s “The King” and Dana Adam Shapiro’s “Daughters Of The Sexual Revolution: The Untold Story Of The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.”
“We always aim to bring a mix of programming that is equally entertaining, eye-opening and engaging to the festival each year, and this year’s lineup continues that tradition,” festival film-program director Basil Tsiokos said. “And, of course, foremost in our minds is to share with our audience really great stories, artfully told, and these films won’t disappoint.”
Oscar-nominated writer/director Noah Baumbach will receive the 2018 Screenwriters Tribute Saturday, June 23. Neville, also an Oscar winner, will receive the Special Achievement in Documentary Storytelling Award and Andrew Heckler the New Voices in Screenwriting Award. Ben Stiller will present and participate in The All-Star Comedy Roundtable, “The Improv Takeover,” an evening of spontaneous storytelling and improvisational comedy, featuring actors and comedians Thomas Middleditch (“Silicon Valley”) and Ben Schwartz (“Parks and Recreation”) on Friday, June 22. In addition, the festival will present a live taping of NPR’s “Ask Me Another” with host Ophira Eisenberg Thursday, June 21.
Over the past 22 years the festival has mixed highly-anticipated awards contenders with the films of emerging and established filmmakers, and brought together the film industry’s most recognized screenwriters and storytellers, including Oliver Stone, Steve Martin, Judd Apatow, Tom McCarthy, Beau Willimon, Kathryn Bigelow, Sarah Silverman, Alexander Payne, David O. Russell, Diane Keaton, Robert Towne, Glenn Close and Aaron Sorkin.
It has also produced the All-Star Comedy Roundtable Presented by Ben Stiller, and the conversation series “In Their Shoes With . . .,” which has included Robin Wright and Beau Willimon with Chris Matthews, Tom McCarthy with Bobby Cannavale, Molly Shannon with Michael Ian Black and Bradley Whitford with Matthews.