“The Favourite” leads the nominations for the 24th Annual Critics’ Choice Awards this year with 14 nominations including Best Picture, Olivia Colman for Best Actress and Best Actress in a Comedy, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz both for Best Supporting Actress, Best Acting Ensemble, and Yorgos Lanthimos for Best Director.
The Favourite[/caption]
The Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA) which comprises of 60 DC-based film critics from the District, Maryland and Virginia announced their nominees for the 2018 awards. The Favourite lead with 10 nominations including Best Film and Best Director for Yorgos Lanthimos. Other films nominated for Best Film include A Star Is Born, Green Book, If Beale Street Could Talk, and Roma.
The nominees for Best Documentary are Free Solo, RBG, Science Fair, Three Identical Strangers and Won’t You Be My Neighbor? The nominees for Best Foreign Film are Burning, Capernaum, Cold War, Roma and Shoplifters. The nominees for the special category The Joe Barber Award for Best Portrayal of Washington, DC are The Front Runner, RBG and Vice.
The 2018 WAFCA Award winners will be announced on Monday, December 3, 2018.
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.
Glenn Close in The Wife[/caption]
Glenn Close will receive the Icon Award at the 30th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) for her performance in The Wife. The Festival runs January 3-14.
In The Wife, Joan Castleman (Glenn Close) has spent forty years sacrificing her own identity and dreams to support her charismatic husband Joe (Jonathan Pryce) and his stellar literary career. Ignoring infidelities and excuses made in the cause of his art, she has put up with his behavior with undiminished grace and humor. The foundations of their marriage have, however, been built upon a set of uneven compromises – and Joan has reached a turning point. On the eve of Joe’s Nobel Prize for Literature, Joan confronts the biggest sacrifice of her life and some long-buried secrets. Directed by Björn Runge from a screenplay by Jane Anderson, based on the best-selling book by Meg Wolitzer, The Wife stars Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, Christian Slater, Max Irons, Harry Lloyd, Annie Starke and Elizabeth McGovern. The film is distributed by Sony Pictures Classics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d81IM0loH7o
“Glenn Close is a rare and enduring talent who has consistently brought challenging characters to life on film, television and stage for over four decades,” said Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. “In her latest feature film, The Wife, she gives a tour-de-force performance as the perfect spouse, who relinquishes her own ambitions to propel her husband’s career. It is our honor to present the 2019 Icon Award to Glenn Close.”
Close, a six-time Academy Award nominee, made her feature debut in The World According to Garp, earning her first Oscar nomination. She was subsequently Oscar-nominated for The Big Chill, The Natural, Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons and Albert Nobbs, for which she was also co-screenwriter, producer and lyricist on the Golden-Globe nominated song, “Lay Your Head Down.” She stars with Jonathan Pryce in Jane Anderson’s film adaptation of Meg Wolitzer’s bestselling novel, The Wife, as well as in Jane Anderson’s play, The Mother of the Maid, currently on stage at New York’s Public Theater through December 23. Her theater credits include Love for Love, The Crucifer of Blood, Barnum (Tony nomination) and Tony Awards for her performances in The Real Thing, Death and the Maiden and Sunset Boulevard. Starting in 2007, Ms. Close headlined the legal thriller Damages for five seasons, winning two consecutive Best Actress Emmys. Her 12 Golden Globe nominations include a Best Actress Award for a television production of The Lion in Winter. Among her 12 Emmy nominations is a Best Actress Award for Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (earning her a Peabody Award as executive producer).
Past recipients of the Icon Award include Willem Dafoe, Michael Douglas, Robert Duvall, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep. In 2011, the Palm Springs International Film Festival gave Close the Career Achievement Award for her performance in Albert Nobbs. Glenn Close in The Wife[/caption]
Glenn Close, most recently gracing the silver screen in Sony Pictures Classics’ The Wife. will receive the prestigious Maltin Modern Master Award at the 34th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
“Glenn Close is one of the great actresses of our time. Versatility is her hallmark, and there is clearly nothing she can’t do. She became a star with her first feature film, The World According to Garp, and has gone on to play everyone from Cruella de Vil to aging silent-film star Norma Desmond in the stage musical of Sunset Blvd. I can’t wait to spend an evening with her onstage at the Arlington Theater,” states Maltin.
Directed by Berlin Silver Bear-winner Björn Runge, The Wife is adapted by Jane Anderson from the Meg Wolitzer novel of the same name. After nearly forty years of marriage, JOAN and JOE CASTLEMAN (Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce) are complements: Where Joe is brash, Joan is shy. Where Joe is casual, Joan is elegant. Where Joe is vain, Joan is self-effacing. And where Joe enjoys his very public role as Great American Novelist, Joan pours her considerable intellect, grace, charm, and diplomacy into the private role of Great Man’s Wife, keeping the household running smoothly, the adult children in close contact, and Joe’s pills dispensed on schedule. At times, a RESTLESS discontentment can be glimpsed beneath Joan’s smoothly decorous surface, but her natural dignity and keen sense of humor carry her through the rough spots. The Wife debuted in theaters this summer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d81IM0loH7o
The Modern Master Award was established in 1995 and is the highest accolade presented by SBIFF. Created to honor an individual who has enriched our culture through accomplishments in the motion picture industry, it was re-named the Maltin Modern Master Award in 2015 in honor of long-time SBIFF moderator and renowned film critic Leonard Maltin. Past recipients include Denzel Washington, Michael Keaton, Bruce Dern, Ben Affleck, Christopher Plummer, Christopher Nolan, James Cameron, Clint Eastwood, Cate Blanchett, Will Smith, George Clooney and Peter Jackson.
The 34th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival will take place from Wednesday, January 30th through Saturday, February 9th.
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.
The European premiere of The Wife directed by Björn Runge and starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce, will close the 65th edition of the San Sebastian Festival.
Glenn Close (with Jonathan Pryce) in The Wife[/caption]
Actress Glenn Close will receive the Golden Icon Award at this year’s Zurich Festival, and present her latest film, The Wife with her co-stars Jonathan Pryce and Annie Starke and director Björn Runge.
The Golden Icon Award is the Festival’s most prestigious symbol of recognition, in appreciation of the lifetime achievements of an actor or actress. Glenn Close will be honored with the award on Sunday October 1.
ZFF Co-Directors Nadja Schildknecht and Karl Spoerri state “We’re honored to present Glenn Close with our Golden Icon Award at this year’s Festival. From her commanding portrayal of Patty Hewes in Damages to the glorious Marquise de Merteuil in Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liasions via Alex Forrest and Cruella De Vil, Glenn Close has brought her extraordinary presence to countless memorable roles over a truly formidable career. We are delighted to welcome her to Zurich and screen her latest film The Wife.”
First They Killed My Father – Angelina Jolie[/caption]
The Toronto International Film Festival today unveiled the first round of titles premiering in the Gala and Special Presentations programs of the 42nd edition of the festival, taking place from September 7 to 17, 2017.
Of the 14 Galas and 33 Special Presentations, this first announcement includes 25 World Premieres, eight International Premieres, six North American Premieres and eight Canadian Premieres.
“Festival-goers from around the world can anticipate a remarkable lineup of extraordinary stories, voices and cinematic visions from emerging talent and some of our favorite masters,” said Piers Handling, CEO and Director of TIFF. “Today’s announcement offers audiences a glimpse at this year’s rich and robust selection of films, including works from Canada, USA, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, India, Chile, Egypt and Cambodia.”
“Every year we set the stage for film lovers of all ages and cultural backgrounds to come together and embrace the universal power of cinema,” said Cameron Bailey, Artistic Director of TIFF. “As the Festival enters its fifth decade, we’ve challenged ourselves to adapt and build on our strengths, and we look forward to championing a new selection of films that will captivate and inspire global film audiences.”